The Lost Son
by Heliosion
Summary: In a world where Superboy escaped before the team found him, a young Conner Luthor changes the world. He puts out the flames of one man's ambition to kill his rival, travels the world and sees in his own eyes the world long before he starts upon the path of the hero. Now in the world's greatest crisis he must do as he agreed when the time came and save the world. This is my AU.
1. Chapter 1 A Hard First Day On The Job

"Young Justice New World Chronicles"

"The Lost Son"

By Heliosion

Chapter 1: A Hard First Day On The Job

Disclaimer: I obviously don't own the DC universe or its affiliates for if I did I wouldn't have grown men flying around with their underwear on the outside of their spandex pants. Or make a superhero whose special power is driving a taxi.

Oh yeah this is based in an original multiverse world. In this case Earth X for this is a fanfiction and I haven't had the opportunity to read every single comic produced by DC hence continuity will suffer so I will create my own in the spirit of Young Justice.

On a side note I would like to thank _Jessesgirl1549_ for the existence of her fics for sparking my imagination. Thank you and please check her out. She is a wonderful writer.

**Constructive reviews only people**

XreviewX

"In other news, Congress passed an economic bill promoting foreign trade with the previously restricted nation of Kaznia after its twelve years civil war ended last year. Delegates from both sides came to an agreement over energy, reconstruction and the distribution of humanitarian aid. On the scene is…"

"Hey kid," growled his supervisor, "You got customers."

He took his eyes from the pretty blonde newscaster on the television and put on his business smile for the bald rotund man wearing a tailored suit that was first in line. He automatically turned on the coffee machine and greeted the new customer, who had a line of thirsty, caffeine deprived people looking equally irritated waiting close behind.

"Hello, how might I help you today, sir?" he drawled from behind the counter. God, this job had been boring; not unlike the other equally mind numbing jobs Lex assigned to him to pay his way. But this had to be the worst one so far. It was like the CEO of Luthor Corp was taking great pleasure in torturing him in the hope his little journey would be completed all the faster and the working teen would desire to return home. It was spiritually breaking work, demanding much with little bounty for his efforts. Learning how to operate this coffee machine had taken longer than expected requiring more use from his eidetic memory than normal. Besides, learning how to pacify caffeine addicts needing a fix had been something to test the patience of a god.

It was just as well he had learned to temper his urge to punch his fist through the coffee machine. He was convinced the inanimate object was somehow mocking him.

"I would like an espresso and one of your muffins please," the man asked, sweat dripping from his fattened brow. This had to be one of the higher ups on level seven. It was like a badge of superiority; the higher you went the fatter and unfit you became until, at the very top, you magically became toned and healthy like Lex was. Well, at least for a human.

The coffee shop that straddled the nearby Luthor Corp building was also one of the businesses owned by Luthor Enterprises as a whole. It never stopped seeing action; being manned twenty four hours a day, mostly for the sake of the company's night staff. Still, there was a steady stream of outsiders that fuelled up here regularly both day and night.

"What kind of muffin?" he asked. The teenager was amazed at how well he was barely hiding his boredom by looking through the lens of his fake glasses like he was paying full attention to him. If nothing else, this job was teaching him acting skills.

Spending so much time among the humans was teaching him many things about their way of life. He had travelled through many cities and traversed the farmlands of this fine nation. He had taken the time to see all walks of life, observing both common folk and meta-humans alike. The hypocritical standards some held to in their daily lives and the true joys they held onto every day…

His only conclusion so far was that some of humanity was approvable, while others was more grey than black. Like this man here, someone who had probably worked hard from college to climbing up the company ladder to the executive position he held now. But the man no doubt hoarded his gold once he was secure in his cave of power and had lost at least some of the goodness he depended on to get there.

"In other news, the worst case of flooding in twenty years in Nigeria was resolved thanks to the efforts of the Justice League. Superman, the chairman of this illustrious group had this to say earlier today."

The teenager tuned out after hearing the newscaster speak. She was his favourite news anchor and he had actually met the woman in question the day she was hired. The statement from the styled 'man of steel' on the other hand would only create conflicting feelings that he had no intention of dealing with in the near future. He now turned his interest back to his customer with pudgy cheeks that were flush from being ignored.

"I said _I_ would like a banana muffin," he grunted, barely hiding his contempt at having to talk so much to the little person serving him his lunch. The teen immediately pigeonholed this man in the category of greedy man who had been blinded by his power in the world. It was kind of funny though. For all that power, if only he knew that with one call Lex would probably reassign him to the Alaska oil drilling station. This thought brought a sense of pleasure that he knew at a basic human level was supposed to be wrong to appreciate.

It begged the question why humanity suppressed what it liked so much. What was there to be afraid of? Did society cook up this belief system? And just how demented were they? Or were they trying to for some reason put themselves apart from the rest of creation that lived and breathed on this planet? Again, the question begged the worker. Why did humanity uphold this flawed system?

"Banana muffin and one espresso," the teenager repeated to make sure nothing had been left out or misheard. His supervisor, the handlebar moustache sporting Mr Pillar wearing his Luthor Coffee supervisor jacket with his name tag proudly exclaiming his ten years of service on it was glaring at him. By now the teen had hoped to have been fired from this job but his surname was protecting him. Well at least for now. "That will be $6.95 please sir."

The man handed over ten dollars and wavered accepting the change, causing the worker to raise an eyebrow as this kind of people was usually a greedy bunch. With well-practised ease earned over the course of three months he made the espresso and used his tongs to extract the last of the banana muffins onto a plate. While the man was just like any other suit, his eidetic memory remembered them all as individuals and knew their preferences. It had gotten to the stage that he never bothered to ask if they were sitting in or taking away.

"What is your name?" demanded the served customer leering behind his spectacles at the nametag on his black company uniform. As usual, like the other ten people who asked this week the man paled and nearly lost his footing. "I'm sorry Mr Luthor sir," the man quailed unnecessarily before he fled to one of the couches next to the newspaper stand.

"_That never changes,"_ the teen known as Luthor by surname thought. _"They love being an ass to the small people, but once they take a good look at who I am they change. Humanity is stupid, and I have no idea why they act like this to each other."_

"Hey Conner," his supervisor drawled, "You scare another one away with your daddy's name?"

This man Conner Luthor could respect. He never bowed down to anyone and despite embodying obnoxiousness and revelling in being a bastard to everyone that was within shouting distance, the man never showed any sign of being intimidated by his foster father; you know, the man who paid his salary. Once this job was completed, Conner intended to tell Lex to promote him for the size of his balls in ignoring Conner's station in life. He was still intimidated by the potential power a name provided a human being, and the short cut, raven haired teen's mind boggled at the class system modern people insisted didn't exist anymore.

So much hypocrisy ignored, yet it was nice for one human at the very minimum to be straight to him like his foster father. The father figure claimed 'honesty was the currency of those secure in their power'. Lex always seemed to be trying to teach him something when he said that, but Conner felt this was a life lesson yet to be understood. The Genomorphs had only instilled intelligence not wisdom.

"As usual," Conner tried to joke but humour was a cultural affair. One man's laughter was another man's disgust. They had humour about everything; jokes about race, religion, culture and current events between nations and all mixed in what was deemed acceptable and what constituted something that gave reasons to wage war. Some jokes could mean something only in one place while others could be appreciated worldwide. His so far was practised from two years of living life and most called it _dry_.

Conner figured it was better than having no sense of humour at all. That was what his supervisor was supposed to be lacking, according to his colleagues banished to the kitchen behind him washing dishes after trying to be _humorous_ with the boss.

"Maybe we should put it in big letters on your shirt and we can stop them complaining about the slow service, huh?" the supervisor drawled, pointing to the line of customers still waiting. "Mind you, not all of our customers have daddy paying their golf club membership, so get back to work."

Conner had learned with consequences the one time he challenged that statement. Even with super abilities worthy of a god, fighting a war of wits with an old veteran, such as Mr Pillar, was suicidal. Even with super powers, Conner quailed at the power of his tongue.

"Yes Mr Pillar," Conner submitted, turning with the biggest falsehood that one would call a smile to a harried young blonde with two cell phones, one in each ear, while tapping something into a Blackberry. The woman tried to signal she was almost finished with her calls, not that this pacified the impatient customers waiting behind her.

Conner was curious about her supposed important phone calls, which were holding up the taped off line that ran from the glassed door to the busy city outside right through to the counter. It passed through four open planned areas filled with colourful seating, computers and customers watching the television or chatting with friends. Indulging this curiosity, he listened in with his super hearing.

Only to be assaulted from all corners with background noise. This was how Conner spent his spare time sometimes. He learned so much from eavesdropping on people and at the same time fine-tuned his more delicate abilities. In his wanderings, he had heard the best of people and the worst. From wife beating husbands, who were telling their wives or kids how worthless they were, to angry businessmen cheating on their wives in hotel rooms to brighter pictures of life like priests giving sermons or babies being born in maternity hospitals to happy families. Humanity was a curse filled with complexities beyond even its own understanding.

But while it had taken him minutes to rein in its full potency (he was hearing people in the suburbs complain about the hose pipe ban), rather than seconds as was in his brain's manual about the theory behind his superpowers supplied by Cadmus, his control was improving. In sparsely populated areas, it was as easy as turning on the coffee machine since he was able to forego the wince that came with accepting a million decibels of gobbledegook that bred like locusts in developed zones.

"_Those reports for the McMillan contract had better be completed by seven, Amanda,"_ drawled one severe woman on one cell phone. _"Or the boss will have both of our hides."_

"_I want blue cheese in my bagel, Amanda,"_ barked another equally demanding albeit squeaky woman on the other cell phone, _"And don't forget my dry cleaning again."_

It was typical human stuff when addressing their servants. Lex was just as needy towards his own, despite his capabilities only; he worded it in such a way the woman named Mercy hadn't quit from her first job for ten years. The bald intellectual could order her, scold her, hell, he threatened her that one time with firing her for losing documents that gotten into the hands of the State department about some sensitive project, but the charismatic captain of enterprise made you feel all fuzzy when he spoke to anyone.

But his thoughts of sociology were interrupted by the woman finishing her business on both phones and storing them into her pockets, with the blackberry operated with one hand while the other was extracting her wallet. She looked at him, harangued, but still pleasant enough with her lopsided glasses pausing to correct them with her pinkie finger. Her cheap, polyester suit symbolised her stature at the bottom of the pecking order but that humanity she wielded, like a cloak from her true feelings, was courteous enough to not have been as downtrodden as the owner.

In his experience and understanding of the world, those sweet, naive types usually lost their sparkle after a few years of being treated like dirt, while dastardly, more opportunistic colleagues zoomed past them for promotion and respect. Conner thought that part of the human condition sucked, but enjoyed the woman's outlook before real life wormed its way in.

"Could I have a blue cheese bagel and two cups of coffee?" she asked kindly, "Black," she added, "I'm sorry for slowing you down."

It was people like this that made Conner work as fast as his legs could move. His coffees were on at super speed (for a human being, of course) and a loud declaration to the kitchen had the minions scuttling to work. Meanwhile, his supervisor had taken over another till and started taking orders. Why he hadn't ever done this before, the disgruntled queue was large enough to spill out into the busy urban street, the teen would never figure out.

While Amanda waited for her order, she scuttled to the side to avoid collision with the meaty road worker who had been working on the road works outside in all his fluorescent, orange glory. He had tucked his hardhat with ear protectors attached under his arm and his boots were dirtying what had been a clean, white tiled floor in some combination of sand and wet bitumen.

"Sixteen coffees," he asked, well, more like ordered. Here was an example of humanity that defied the rules on upper classes looking down on the lower orders of life. It almost brought a smile to Conner's face, to the different sorts of power men wielded over each other. Be it this muscled mass glaring behind his unshaven face or the businessman giving him darted looks behind the shelter of his broadsheet that was upside down.

"Is that just sixteen coffees?" Conner asked calmly, using what he had learned about dealing with rough types by crossing his arms to let his deceptive muscles bulge on his forearms. The man seemed nonplussed and stood up to his full height that was nearly two inches more than the teen.

"Yeah," the man gruffly confirmed, "Sixteen coffees."

Conner swiftly produced the wanted beverages, but with service that your average slug would offer. His supervisor had taken six customers before the bagel requested by the woman earlier was given; her order completed, the frightened woman fled without saying her goodbyes and punched the order for the coffees into the till.

"That will be $22 with our special offer with two for the price of one," Conner stated. The man produced the full amount in dirty bedraggled dollar bills; Conner could feel the chill of his supervisor's ire at having to handle that when it was time to cash up. The road worker accepted his lunch order and left, sending people scurrying away like every step he made caused tremors in the ground instead of muddy floors that Conner would probably have to clean later when the rush tapered off.

"Hey, rich boy," Mr Pillar prompted, "Go clean up the tables. I can have Chen man your till."

"Yes, Mr Pillar," Conner said, cleaning his hands on his green apron. He strolled round the corner and opened up the divider with one hand while claiming a fresh tray with the other. Bypassing the crowd that was sandwiched between him and his goal, Conner picked up some unsavoury comments made under a customer's breath and reached his destination.

The table was occupied by teenage girls, around his physical age and they had their own style of making Conner feel small. They rattled away about the life he should know of. Favourite movie stars, music and culture that was still very alien to him. He was not a fan of modern music, his ears preferred hearing words that belonged to the English dictionary and slow enough to comprehend without super hearing. The violent movies they watched reminded him of the moulding Cadmus tried to implant into him, furthering his discomfort from old issues that he hated to think on. But like any super person, Conner persevered and approached their table to take their empty cups.

"No, Kid Flash is kind of cute," a red head with a dimpled chin and wearing more skin than clothes argued. Her two friends were made to stare at her cell phone.

"Well, if you like boys, I suppose," the second, with obvious dyed red hair, said condescendingly, trying to sound like an elder with wisdom before her time, "But for me, the Flash is a man. Just like the other men of the Justice League."

"Yes, like Superman," a third, someone Conner found attractive (he was still a growing, hormonal man) with black hair and sparkly, blue eyes. He took more notice of her genuine and shy body language (again thank Cadmus and the Genomorphs) that the teenager found he could understand and relate to compared to her fast living, irresponsible friends. It was just a shame that the smile belonged to his father, his genetic donor and not him. It did make him wonder, for a brief heartbeat, if her knowing that would let her look at him like she did right now.

"This just in," the newscaster said loudly as the volume had been put up so everyone could hear, "The JLA has encountered and been decimated by an unknown enemy just outside of Metropolis after engaging it in many encounters between there and Ohio, where it first appeared. So far, reports state that it has brazenly smashed its way through everything, destroying towns and farmland that has come in its path and put most, if not nearly all, of the Justice League out of commission. Superman is continuing to engage and battle the creature, while the department for meta-human affairs has issued a statement giving the public their assurances that they are doing all they can."

The vibration in Conner's pants made the teen jump in surprise. Nobody but Lex had that number, and he never called him. The man, with his busy schedule, only found the time to e-mail him before the industrialist went to bed. This phone only rang when Lex was going to call in _the_ favour.

Conner instantly dropped his tray with a clatter, startling everyone in the shop in the process and extracted the state of the art Android phone and answered it.

"_We have a situation Conner,"_ Lex's voice said calmly, _"I need you put in the headset Mr Pillar will give you at the end of this conversation into your phone. Put it in and listen to the instructions the satellite navigation system gives you. It will lead you to a place to acquire the proper equipment."_

"Is this about the incident on the news?" Conner asked.

There was silence for a moment. The longevity of it caused a shiver down the super powered human's spine as the man who possessed a will unbendable than the strongest steel and a heart more stout than the power of Superman seemed worried about something.

Did this threat actually endanger Metropolis itself? The majestic city of the East that rivalled New York in splendour and Gotham in beauty was Lex's home; damn the gods to hell if anything would destroy anything that _belonged_ to Lex Luthor. No wonder Lex, who kept favours like party favours, was cashing this one in.

And, like any grateful man who was rescued, treated and cured for his genetic problems that came about escaping from Cadmus and the power that bought him his freedom from that cell, Conner Luthor would answer the call. Lex often called him his son and, like any good child, the Kryptonian hybrid owed Lex Luthor his life and loyalty.

That was just how the cookie crumbled. What the conclusion to everything was to him. Loyalty begot loyalty that was respected and executed to its inevitable conclusion.

"_You will find out when you arrive at your destination,"_ Lex said, _"Fly safe Conner; don't bother to hide your abilities. Get here as fast as you can fly and I will arrange the media blackout. It will be easy with what is going on right now."_ Conner waited for more, but the dial tone soon beeped ominously and Conner went into action.

While not practised very much at using super speed, he was able to take off his apron, throw it into the air and stop next to the supervisor, waiting with an earpiece on like Conner hadn't moved at all. The minor delay had been from a millisecond miscalculation where he bumped one of the workers off her feet with the airstream his fast movements created and caught her, leaving burn marks on the floor that were still smoking.

Despite the super speed and the smoke that threatened to set off the fire alarm directly overheard, plus the flustered soccer mum, his supervisor didn't show any sign of surprise.

"The boss wants you somewhere and I have to be the one that gives you my damn company phone hands free kit." The supervisor slapped an earpiece into his hand, blinking red as it was already switched on and searching for devices. Once it stopped, Conner checked his phone and found it was connected. After slipping in his ear, he turned on a widget and a crisp male started issuing instructions to him.

"Um, boss, this probably means I won't be doing the nightshift tomorrow," Conner said almost sheepishly. "And excuse me," he said, inhaling and exhaling creating a gust of air that put out the smoke on the floor.

Again, the older man showed absolutely no alarm from his actions. "You were the worst employee I ever had, kid, so just go." The man actually had a dirty smirk on his chapped lips and nodded to the kitchen door. "Go before I take your last paycheque off you."

Conner was speechless. The man was joking with him! Conner Luthor, daddy's rich boy, the slacker, the waste of human flesh that was his useless worker was being offered respect? Had the older man just been playing one large joke on him? Once again, the concept of humour had kicked him down and was mocking him for his inability to understand it. But, instead of feeling negative about it, the former weapon was filled with a sense of accomplishment, as if the man had been testing Conner. The teenager felt he had passed it as well.

"I will do better in my next job, Mr Pillar," Conner said, shyly offering a slight smile. Mr Pillar just stared at him with those angry eyes he loved to use so much, cold like knives that soon became mirthful as the man bellowed with laughter into the silent café. He held onto his sides enjoying his private joke that not even Conner, the instigator, could figure out. Instead, the man grabbed him by the shoulder jarring the invulnerable teen forward like the supervisor was composed of kryptonite.

"Get going before the boss docks your pay for being late, _Superboy_," drawled his former boss, his face twitching from amusement. "And if you come back, be sure to actually work properly. I know what you can do now."

"Yes, sir," Conner said, sounding reluctant, before closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. The humour he was planning to implement was untested and made the hybrid panic the second it left his lips. "But with all respects, sir, I would rather gouge out my eyes with a corkscrew than do this again."

The man laid stunned at the coarse humour and, for the first time, Conner was laughing first at the bewildered expression, with the lined brow nearly bringing his eyebrows up to his hair, or what was left of it. Then there was a titter, then another, before the entire silent café with just the news report before to provide some noise began to laugh, as his audience appreciated the effort. Conner relaxed, taking off his fake glasses and handing them to his boss.

"What is this?" he asked curtly with a raised eyebrow.

"A souvenir," Conner said, straight faced feeling bolder by the lack of curses, "Goodbye, sir." Conner then ran at super speed, whipping up a wind that sent girls wearing skirts screaming and sent discarded food wrappers flapping like a ticker tape parade to celebrate his escape from this job. He zoomed past the mass of bodies on the main streets of Star City, erratically zipping through them all, almost passing it at first before double backing and shrouding himself in the shadows of a residential block's red bricked alley.

There, the super person psyched himself up for flying. He had rarely taken to the sky, feeling naked against the barrage of superheroes that would find him. He still had crippling memories of escaping Cadmus and the aftermath of his destructive rampage upon awakening his meta-human genes that made the panicked and disorientated weapon use all his abilities to destroy the place that had trapped him. While slipping away the day before Lex appeared and offered his hand to the fledgling in rags, the JLA had appeared on the scene just prior to his escape and the power they wielded was frightening. Seeing his genetic donor scared him and the Batman and Wonder Woman…

But, it was a past he hated to remember. The times were deliberately put to the back of his mind, as they had been less than pleasant. Well, that was until Lex Luthor offered his hand and gave the teen the will to continue on and to forget what had occurred. It was the sheer trust provided without any attempt to command Conner, despite Lex's reputation; that made the teen use the powers he barely understood apart from inserted information and the physics behind the theory of flight.

Sure, he had flown a few times in night and out of the sight of men in dense woodland or behind mountains. But Conner Luthor had never flown in high altitudes before and the voice in the earpiece was telling him to ascend two kilometres into the air. He was filled with ambivalence towards it. His loyalty to Lex Luthor and the inevitable end to his carefree days as a free man were warring with each other. On one hand, Lex Luthor was his father, the man who brought him into the world, yet he had no real ties to him. Conner could be selfish and vanish into the ether. One swift flight as far away from America to Asia and disappear.

But that brought a horrible taste to his mouth, more foully than the rancid trashcans in the alley. Cadmus had instilled an urge to be loyal and trustworthy to the ones seen as his commanding officer. The general of his unit was Lex Luthor; no self-interest could win in a battle of his conscience.

It was to Metropolis then. Conner braced his knees and bounded into the air, allowing his flying powers and super speed to do the rest. Like a missile, he easily reached the skyline of Star city, using light fluffy clouds as concealment from any onlookers and extended his telescopic sight gaining a bird eye's view of the industrious city that was under the protection by the Green Arrow, one of the few members of the JLA without a super power and was the only reason he had arrived here. Normally, he avoided JLA members and their home turfs, but at the time, he felt smug after using the old 'hide a tree put it in a forest' trick to hide and stupidly tempted fate to bite him in the ass.

"It's for Lex," Conner chanted, starting a mantra. He reached deep into himself and soared into the air while following the instructions of satellite navigation. _"It's for Lex,"_ he continued thinking about it. He reached out with his telescopic vision and looked down onto the city below.

As he expected the fears from before had him up in arms and his powers operating at full pelt. His phobia of encountering high profile superheroes made him search for foes and his target alike, clumsily combing the city limits and beyond with his inexperienced power to act as a warning. He was waiting for the satellite navigation to send him to his next set of directions and that was the case until a cursory use of his super hearing heard something moving very fast and coming in his direction.

With his eyes watching the speed of the supersonic jet like it was merely moving swiftly instead of shattering the sound barrier many times over, a jet model Lex Luthor had personally designed for the US air force shot past him, shattering the sound barrier. Using alien appropriated technology with a Luthor Corp spin, the jet stopped just as easily as it had been moving and hovered in mid-air, implementing an anti-gravity well that made the Javelin aircraft the JLA use seem like toys if it weren't for their adaptability and that handy ability to travel large distances via wormholes. It was a large aircraft, about the size of a cold war cargo plane and streamlined to the teeth with a shiny metallic substance that repelled radar and other tracking systems. The two engines were blasting blue energy dead centre to maintain balance and offer sustenance to the energy field keeping the crew from turning into paste. On the top, a pair of red lights was lit on an unsealed hatch and Conner saw that as his welcome wagon.

Conner checked the interior with his x-ray vision and was unsurprised when he was repelled. Some kind of immersion dampener was causing reflections that diffused his x-ray enough to make him feel nauseous. While Superman could probably get around it with his experience it was like motion sickness to the teen and made him nauseous. It made the teen that used it the last time to find his neighbour's kitten when he stayed in Seattle wince from a headache.

He saw enough though to recognise certain uniforms moving on the plane to know this was his vehicle to the job at hand and while outpacing the jet the Superman entity shot into the hatch, opened it with a hand print scan and was inside within ten seconds. Okay, he banged his head off the door, leaving a sizeable dent, but in his defence, it was the nerves of dealing with this mystery problem and the unexplained shaking coming from the plane in uneven intervals like a restless big cat tied up in a sack, trying to escape.

Inside, after listening to the hatch automatically close it was a well-organised pandemonium of people, equipment and headless chickens posing as scientists. The large cargo bay was designed along the lines of functionality with nets destined to hold cargo, a conveyer belt for the small VTOL, a sleek silver triangle shaped objects packed one on top of the other. Team Luthor soldiers wearing similar armour to the titular Science Police, albeit more sophisticated and specialised, were in a line while another man ran them over with Geiger counter like devices that were actually looking for faults in their equipment. They were currently without their aerial assault gear, as they hung on the ceiling and held in place by the deviant gravity bubble found on the ceiling.

"Mr Luthor, sir," bellowed the Team Luthor commander, pushing aside a scientist that was monitoring something on a powerful computer. A glance had his telescopic sight spot a real time observation of a war going on; only the warriors were Superman and this grey monster just outside of Metropolis. "I am Commander Johnson, head of Team Luthor squad two. Please follow me. Mr Luthor provided you with some items; they will contain the mission parameters."

"What has happened so far?" he couldn't help but ask. The black haired teen was under no delusions, but as Lex once said, it was better to know all the facts before panicking. At least then you would have a legitimate reason to have that nervous breakdown.

"Well, sirs, hell shitted up something big, Mr Luthor," Johnson spoke frankly, "The worst breach, no, it would be better to call it the biggest _disaster_ of national security since Pearl Harbour. We have the entire Justice League incapacitated, four of their apprentices in the hospital and we might just have to tell the President that we have to evacuate Metropolis since not even Superman can stop the monster the press is calling Doomsday."

The man left that for the scion of Superman to chew on while they marched. This _was_ about the thing on the news. And it had defeated the Justice League? It was giving Superman a class in how to get his ass kicked as well? No wonder he was sent in. But where was Supergirl? Or where was the Martian Manhunter with powers rivalling the great man of steel, or the Green Lantern, with his intergalactic police force as well as his power ring to aid him, hell, even Wonder Woman? Was Johnson being literal when the _complete_ Justice League had been dispatched by one being? After destroying armies of white Martians, rogue states and everything else thrown at them, just one soul had conquered them all at once? It almost seemed like he was having a nightmare and Conner was waiting to wake up.

The butterflies fluttered in his stomach uncontrollably. This had quickly become so much more than a mere outing working for Lex Luthor. This was worth millions of lives now, not just one man and his assets. Lex wanted him to protect what was his, or rather, what would be one day. An entire city and the big man wanted someone who used his heat vision enough times to count on one hand to go straight to the heavyweight division, sorry, the _Superman_ division.

"What are you thinking, Lex?" Conner muttered, following the leader of the armoured patrol team. His bulky humanoid armour, green in colour (but had the ability to change colour), was deceptively light built like a turtle shell to manage the wings they used to fly on for later. His face was hidden by a visor; designed like night goggles that also searched in the infrared and acted as a Geiger counter. They stopped in an executive room, threadbare of luxury items with clothes hanging on a couch and a television screen.

"You can change in here while I debrief my men, Mr Luthor," the commander said with a salute, "I can now finally see what the big secret is." He left the room, closing the door behind him and leaving the teen to his own devices.

"What have you gotten me into?" Conner asked the empty grey wall. He unhooked his new clothing and unzipped the dust protector to reveal something that made the teen drop it. "You couldn't have replicated it?" Conner whispered, picking up and cradling the white body suit reminding him so much of the uniform he had been found in only minus a symbol, the shield of Superman that both he and Supergirl adorned their clothing. "And the need to replicate my solar suit too." His x-ray vision revealed wires riddled through it and a watch like device that he couldn't recognise. Sighing with reprehensible feelings, the escapee from Cadmus stripped, removing his silent earpiece and put the one piece uniform on. As it was fully slipped on it became snug to his body, emphasising his muscles. On his wrist, a red button on a touch screen glowed and he took the moment to press it.

The television screen came on and sitting behind a chair was Lex Luthor.

Lex Luthor was his usual businessman self. He may have a head smoother than a cue ball, he no less commanded absolute respect with his tailored suit and his executive high backed chair, deep enough to dig a den in. He was sitting behind a desk and was staring right at his foster son, with a cigar half finished in a glass ashtray and a glass of whisky in his hand.

"I set it so the monitoring system would alert me when you put your uniform on," Lex said, "I had no desire to see you naked," he japed deadpan that Conner offered a slight smile to despite the circumstances, "And I wanted you to get your orders from me personally."

"Is this?" Conner asked, leaving the question hanging but making it obvious with his eyes it was about the suit.

"Yes, it is based on the solar suit we found you in," Lex confirmed, "Though, we did add in a few improvements. We implemented a life support system and a two way communications device you will find in the dust jacket. You might have missed it."

Conner searched the discarded bag and found a tiny state of the art earpiece that he clipped to his ear. When it came into his ear, a metal plate popped out from its middle and enveloped the entire perimeter of his sensory organ.

"Is it working?" Conner asked.

"_Sending test signal,"_ Lex replied, making a piece of classical music play.

"Receiving," Conner confirmed.

"Good, also remember that watch transmits your status to us, as well. The electrodes can penetrate your flesh so if you are in danger my troop can help you."

"So, my mission is to help Superman?" The boy of steel hoped the incredulity of his words didn't reach his mentor's ears. It was a hopeless effort for the man never missed a trick, but Superman honestly worried him just as much as the being dubbed Doomsday.

Lex crossed his hands and leaned on his head with his hands. "That is exactly what I need you to do. This Doomsday, as the press have named it, has come out of literally nowhere, destroyed ten towns, killed nearly eight hundred people, while injuring three thousand more and caused four billion dollars of damage. Six hundred million of which was my property or what I had a stake in. It has defeated the entire Justice League in one attack, including the Flash, Martian Manhunter and even left Superman fighting a nonstop battle across state lines from Ohio to here, just outside of the city lines of Metropolis." Lex's stare became serious, furious yet pensive. "Nothing has even slowed it down and soon it will hit Metropolis. That cannot happen _ever_, Conner. Not only would it bankrupt the state of New York, there are eleven million people living here, and the haste of Doomsday has rendered evacuation plans too dangerous; everybody has been sent to the old nuclear bomb shelters, but they will not hold out either if both Superman and Doomsday battle it out in the city limits. So far, shockwaves from twenty miles away have been reported emanating from their blows that brought down concrete buildings and reduced fertile land to craters."

"And so, you need me to help Superman fight Doomsday or we risk losing all of Metropolis," Conner summarised nervously, "So, this is big enough that I need to be exposed?"

"Don't worry about that, Conner," Lex said reassuringly, taking a swig from his drink and puffing on his cigar "The American government declared me your guardian and I have friends in the Senate who will fight my corner when they discover what you are Conner Luthor and whose name you hold, my son."

Conner rarely heard the man use that term of endearment. It was like an occasional treat, a carrot on a stick that the man knew reading the guarded body of Lex Luthor as something he couldn't help do. It was part of his character as a man to hold rewards and had the tendency to do it to all his staff like training dogs to be loyal. But nonetheless, Conner felt a spark of pride, renewed strength from hearing the man say it. He knew he was being played like a fiddle and if this had been their first meeting the hybrid Kryptonian would have run for the hills.

It was just the way the man worked in his daily life. His silver tongue that made his words more powerful than the greatest songstress or temptress magic was why his company was such a highly driven, well-disciplined and most of all loyal employees that had a reputation to attract the best without poaching.

"Thank you," Conner said, "I can do it now, sir."

"Good," the CEO of Luthor Corp said eagerly, "You will be moving supersonic until you reach the site of the battle. From there, I have you lying in wait while we scramble all transmissions with the use of the Echo satellite we are moving into position right now. Then, you will be dropped into the battle zone, which we predict will be on the outskirts of Metropolis. Sensor scans from spy drones indicate that the proverbial last straw had been reached with Superman with his friends hurt and the city in chaos. The army has been unable to keep up with the battle and with a call they will withdraw. Your primary objective is to defeat Doomsday and secondary if possible keep the damage to the city at a minimum and hopefully out of the city entirely, Conner. At all costs, we must stop its rampage before it destroys the S.T.A.R. lab directly in its path and the chemical decommissioning plant owned by me there. If it should leak, the gas cloud would have horrific long term effects."

"Move in and stop Doomsday at all costs, Lex," Conner said eagerly. The mission pep talk was already helping him move along. The bald man had done the same for the time they had lived together. "I won't let you or Team Luthor down Lex, I promise."

Lex grinned happily and leant back into his chair, almost ecstatic looking. "When this is all done, I will treat you to the best, damn steak in Metropolis. I had better get back to coordinating the shutdown of the plant here. You better be careful now, and make sure you contact the pilot to access our records on Doomsday. Use the bottom left button on this monitor to be patched through. I will be watching you, so make me proud."

The screen went black and the watch on his wrist started to show a miniature representation of his body, a bar indicating signal strength and the efficiency of something called the molecular adaption system. The radio signal on his communications link changed also to receive chatter from the troops inside the plane warning them to hold onto something. Then, Conner felt a jerk probably from the sudden shift to supersonic speeds.

Soon, the world of Conner Luthor was on the fringes of changing forever. This day Superman and the Justice League of America would be aware of his existence. To the power of the manmade weapon born from the blood of the world's greatest hero, who possessed the meta-human genes of their finest home grown heroes and the mystery female DNA that not even Lex Luthor could figure out where it had come from. What they thought was the genetic material given to him by his unsuspecting mother, or at least Conner hoped for in his heart of hearts that she didn't know about him.

He didn't think he could handle that, to be honest. But no matter his fostered family, Lex Luthor was there for him. His bastion Conner used against the darkness and the man who started him on his path. Conner, despite all his reservations, would rise to the challenge. Doomsday was as good as dead. So what if Superman was being beaten bloody by this anonymous foe? The greatest titan ever, seen by man being trounced would be short lived once his heir flew in to help.

That was what he kept telling himself to psych up his sudden, trembling hand again. His fear was natural. Conner Luthor was untested in battle, unsure of his powers other than how to turn them on and off. If this foe should defeat Superman, maybe even Metropolis would be in danger. But would the rampage finish there? Conner had a gut feeling Doomsday would never stop. But what lay next on its course was more unthinkable to contemplate. The country's capital could be next on the hit list.

"I'm on my way, Lex," Conner said again to himself, falling back on the bed provided to stare at the bland ceiling, "Time to face my destiny." The teenager floated out of his bed and over to the monitor and pressed a button. A pilot wearing a mask stared back at him grimly. "Give me all the latest up to date information on what I am dealing with here. I want to see all of the archive footage."

"Yes, Mr Luthor," the pilot agreed, "Should I playback from the first recorded moment we can find about Doomsday? It was logged on the US army database around nine am this morning just outside of Lima on highway 45."

"Yes," Mr Luthor Junior said, still floating aimlessly in the air, "Tell me as much as you can before we arrive at the coordinates. Do the other men know their orders?"

"Yes they do, sir," the pilot agreed, his gloved fingers tapping the screen and the first footage of the alien menace, a mountain dressed in a full body green strait jacket with red goggles and lugging around a line of metal ropes that might have once been restraints. "Here is the earliest footage, just before the Flash engaged it for the first time."

"Play it from that point, pilot," Conner said, "I need all the help I can get."

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A/N Oh and if anyone wants to complain about me misnaming Lex Corp it's because it's a tribute to Smallville, a magnificent show that really did well in replicating the awesome DC world for the non-comic book fan as I hope to do in my own world thank you. Also yeah for any big fans they will see my integration of DC comics powers included too but with good reason that you will see later on.


	2. Chapter 2 Armageddon Blues

"Young Justice New World Chronicles"

"The Lost Son"

By Heliosion

Chapter 2: Armageddon Blues

Disclaimer: I obviously don't own the DC universe or its affiliates for if I did I wouldn't have grown men flying around with their underwear on the outside of their spandex pants. Or make a superhero whose special power is driving a taxi.

Oh yeah this is based in an original multiverse world. In this case Earth X for this is a fanfiction and I haven't had the opportunity to read every single comic produced by DC hence continuity will suffer so I will create my own in the spirit of Young Justice.

**Constructive reviews only people**

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"Doomsday," Conner recited, "Approximate height six foot three inches and around four hundred pounds. Initial indications indicate its abilities include super strength, invulnerability and uses appendages probably extensions of its skeletal structure as weapons that have proven capable of even wounding Superman."

On the tablet device projecting the image of the being dubbed Doomsday by the press, the hybrid Kryptonian teenager read the information on the side that had been observed by the various military organisations in the USA and on satellites belonging to Luthor Corp. On the monitor that had allowed the teen to speak to Lex earlier, an interactive menu was highlighting important news recordings by the mass media that had already been listened to.

Now armed with the knowledge of seeing _something_ use the greatest hero in earth's history as a punching bag, knocking seven shades of shit out him in the process had been disconcerting to say the least. His prior confidence talking to Lex earlier when he had been eager to discharge the debt owed dipped with the black eye, cuts and other minor wounds most humans would call normal to any pair fighting but to see an invulnerable man get hurt was soul destroying. To see the man of steel bleed was as religious as the stigmata.

Conner had tracked, employing a holographic map, the entire destructive path of the bastard Doomsday. From the blurry first amateur footage of the Justice League battered in an instant. Seeing Superman's female equal Wonder Woman swatted aside, the Flash's speed neutralised with one swipe and even the mighty Green Lantern, whose power ring was fuelled by willpower, was sent to hospital with a crunch that the uneven quality of the footage had managed to be heard.

The powerful being on the tablet changed as new information came to light. Apparently, from deep scans of the tissue from an experimental microwave satellite pulse suggested the thing seemingly was completely solid. It had no body heat, nor did it generate an energy signature to explain its impossible acts of power or even bodily organs of any kind. Hell, if it didn't make a habit of trashing everything in sight and beating up earth's mightiest heroes, the thing could have moved around undetected for days. It was a frightening thought, that the press coverage, advanced satellite readings and superheroes were the only things preventing a catastrophe that could have taken the lives of millions of people.

What kind of life form was Doomsday? How was it supposed to be fought? Was it immortal? Forged by magic or other alien process unknown to the wider world? How did it function without any obvious source of power? Superman was incapable of being scanned but he had a detectable source of energy in how his cells absorbed solar radiation.

Though the media had only captured sporadic coverage of any actual engagements from Superman, who arrived late from doing a talk show in New York Luthor Corp, had been watching with satellites and the images were grim. The legendary heat vision was ignored, the arctic breath laughable and the only seemingly powerful ability, the brief hand to hand combat skirmishes caused more damage to the environment than to Doomsday, who seemed to shrug off a titan's strength with ease.

"_Excuse me, Mr Luthor,"_ a voice buzzed into his communicator, _"We are just above the drop zone. Be prepared to commence the operation from the hanger in two minutes."_

"Copy that," Conner acknowledged, although a rebelling side of him wished he could ignore it all. The short haired warrior was feeling the pressure as reality set in to what was about to go down. He was just moments away from a fight that would be one for the ages. Today, exposure was inevitable and really now his desire for a mask was simultaneously scolding him for forgetting to ask for one and regretting just showing off his super speed in the café so recklessly. "Goodbye, life," he muttered, "I wonder if Superman will like my suit."

Conner threw the tablet device onto the bed and walked up to the door. Whilst obviously delaying his departure by rubbing imaginary lint from his white solar suit or staring at the television screen showing in extreme slow motion Doomsday sucker punching the blue and red clad Superman, he steeled his nerves and sighed.

Damn, this was not getting any easier to think about. Why did he agree to go up against Doomsday? Oh yeah, Lex asked him to. Grumbling under his breath about guardians, he found the will to close the door on the outside of the room and wander into the cargo hold with the regiment ready and receiving one last briefing.

"And for all you ladies, remember this," spoke Commander Johnson. He was clad in his heavy metallic armour as everyone else with his visor on with a metallic green tinge to it, lit up an eerie shade of emerald on one single dot and wore his wings that resembled a stealth aircraft. "We are not, under any circumstances, to engage Doomsday. Our orders are to help evacuate stragglers and secure critical facilities should the unspeakable occur. That means moving old ladies, helping the injured and shutting off the gas mains for every block for as long as you can do it. We let Doomsday and Mr Luthor wreck the city, not any gas lines or electrical cables. Understood?"

"We get you, sir," chanted the entire battle group. Conner surreptitiously checked the faceless men and women who would be doing a job just as potentially dangerous as his own only without Kryptonian god like powers to aid them. He counted three women and ten men all of them with stern faces but with a pride all the armed forces seemed to carry upon wearing their chosen uniform.

"Good," the man shouted, "Salute for Mr Luthor. He will soon be sent to engage the enemy."

The group of soldiers among scientists and plane crew alike turned left on the spot to face and saluted him. Conner didn't know how to respond and repeated the gesture clumsily, hoping they might not see how nervous he was and lose heart before they entered the warzone.

"Thank you," Conner said sincerely. They had so much faith in him at this moment in time. To fail them for a heartbeat seemed more disturbing than rumbling with Doomsday, the grey potential extra-terrestrial that had come out of nowhere with no reason to be violent other than it could be. "I will do my best."

"We can only ask for that Mr Luthor, sir," Johnson said with his own salute. "We move out in two minutes." He pointed to an airplane technician. "Open the cargo bay door. Unit move in behind Mr Luthor."

Conner felt the return of the butterflies, knowing he was leading the mission when a deep, hungry rumble preceded the opening of the carnivorous back door that spilled out to expose their place in the heavens. The plane was dropping altitude as it was passing through a cloud bank before the devastation became obvious.

He had once seen a disaster movie about an earthquake with a former co-worker that had aided him in understanding human behaviour by being patient with the socially awkward teenager. To aid him, they had watched a lot of movies. The earthquake movie was horrendous, but nothing compared to seeing an almost straight line of utter destruction that barely was touched on upon by the news that stretched out into the horizon. Below him, the edges of Metropolis could be seen and with the use of his combined x-ray and telescopic vision, the city seemed unmolested so far. Conner didn't need his super hearing or his telescopic sight to see or hear where the battle was currently underway.

The sheer forces of the two combatants' punches were generating a shockwave that actually shook the plane from the way all up there in the sky. The fields of corn were flattened, roads were obliterated into broken lines of devastation and random craters were growing faster than the plague. By using his telescopic sight, he was albeit slowly able to observe the whole fight.

"_You are ready to drop, Mr Luthor,"_ the female voice prompted into his earpiece, _"We have linked up to your life support system with the computer on board. Good luck and god speed Mr Luthor, sir."_

"Thank you," Conner gulped shakily, giving away his feelings about this. Doomsday seemed more real than before. Superman was more real in how he suffered his wounds. No longer could his rational mind treat it as some piece of outlandish fiction. It was fresh, it was happening right at this moment and Metropolis where Lex was still hanging around was about to be turned into the largest demolition site in history. "Conner Luthor is moving out."

Superman was not doing too well at all. He was being thrown around like a ragdoll in his futile effort of curtailing the merciless course of the savage beast. Watching carefully, the brawl between the ragged Superman and the seemingly untouched Doomsday, the boy teen lost his bottle for the fight and then regained with some personal psyching up. The pattern repeated the occasional glance back to the cargo bay had the Team Luthor squad waiting for him.

Then, it struck him. Like a lightning bolt, Conner gasped at this being the very first time the super being had actually observed his 'father' in real life. Soon, the following applied to solder on the constitution that sent him like a snarling bull into action. Lex was in Metropolis; his life would be in danger. His biological father was fighting the enemy determined to reach said city where Lex was somewhere in and of course Superman was in danger. While Conner was apprehensive about how his father would treat him upon realising he had a child and up till now unwilling to come out to the man, he didn't want Superman to die without knowing Conner Luthor ever existed.

With steeled courage and an ambitious roar that was drowned out by the high winds, Conner took a running start down the cargo bay door, pouring strength that dented through metal from anxiety and leapt from the edge of the door like a diving board. As he descended, Doomsday had just arrived at the outskirts of the city and Superman appeared temporarily dazed and staggering like a drunken dock worker.

They were battling on a ruined freeway, surrounded by hundreds of abandoned cars. On each side were ruined crops and ruins that had once been used to house farmers or equipment. Doomsday was treating each vehicle on the hot tarmac as a temporary speed bump by either punching them out of the way into other cars causing explosions or stamping on them with its powerful feet. Meanwhile, the man of steel was having an asphalt nap from the last time Doomsday had sent him packing, causing his invulnerable body to drag up the road exposing its belly of pipes and electrical cabling. The grey titan was no longer wearing any of his original outfit, apart from some strategically ragged green pants turned into shorts. The Kryptonian was not much better. The red and blue spandex was torn and his famous cape no longer had the famous shield embroidered on the middle.

Conner had come to a halt in the cloud cover watching the on-going battle with his telescopic vision. Doomsday seemed to be taking his time smashing everything that could be, well, torn to shreds. It was as if its goal was total annihilation of anything and everything in its path. A quick survey with his x-ray vision confirmed that its physiology was similar to his and Superman with regards to the impenetrable hide that could defy x-ray senses. His super hearing amongst the chaos of the evacuating city folk into their shelters could detect no breath from its body but was thankful that Superman was still breathing.

Now, the battle plan was confusing. What did you do that Superman could not? They had the exact same powers and none of them had worked when Superman fired them at Doomsday. In fact, the only difference between them was the…

His thought processes were interrupted by a leaping Doomsday now ignoring the powerful being that had been his opposition and started travelling towards the city lines. What would later be dubbed as Superboy by the press tore across the sky as fast as he could, scattering clouds into wisps until Conner landed in front of the beast that was about to come in for a landing.

"Now what do I do?" Conner asked himself uneasily. The getting in front of the rampaging super monster that made Superman look like a lightweight part of the plan was accomplished but there was a noted lack of anything after that. The beast with the red eyes stopped its rampage once it had gotten sight of Conner, making the super teen almost want to groan.

What made him exasperate his breathing instead of groaning was the sound his super hearing was listening to of a helicopter coming from the city. Now, Conner had an audience, a potential worldwide audience at that to his debut battle. How fun…

The beast lunged at him with both arms reaching out head first. The bony protrusions were glistening with blood as was its shovel sized hands making it seem more demonic than expected. Conner froze for just a moment but soon enough something foreign entered his thinking process. The frightened little boy suddenly had a plan. His eyes traced its flight path and remembering the press report that heat vision at the very minimum pushed Doomsday back while it was in the air had the teen copy the same trick. The heat beam from his eyes struck the fiend in the torso and forced it back.

His follow through was to touch the ground, his tactile telekinesis ripping up the asphalt and dragging up a gas line that exploded when his heat vision fired another blast into the uplifted pipe. For some reason, he thought it was a pretty good distraction and the teen hoped it would awaken the more skilled man of steel.

Unfortunately, Doomsday had others ideas and leapt through the fire that was fuelled by the explosion of the cars that had been in the way and Conner was forced into retreat, unwilling to go man to beast with it so soon. His flight ability came in handy there while it lunged with the haymakers. Conner could just float backwards just out of reach, assessing the situation, buying time, meanwhile feeling the ripples its meaty fist produced with its lethal bony claws with increasing trepidation, until they reached the city itself.

It was then that Doomsday must've gotten bored swinging blows at a fleeing target its own substantial speed couldn't hit. Instead, doing an unforeseen intelligent move, causing a massive crater from the energy its legs was capable of producing jumped into the air over Superman Jr and into the city with predictable results.

People that were too stubborn or unable to reach the shelters screamed and made a commotion attracting its attention. The property destruction, the glass windows that shattered from the boom of its landing, the light posts that collapsed under the crumbling asphalt pathways from the strain, all in all it was an enormous amount of damage and it hadn't raised its fists yet.

In desperation from the beast entering Metropolis and his promise to Lex, Conner swallowed his issues with getting close to the fiend charged forward in perfect horizontal flight leaving the inferno of a gas fire on the freeway behind him to burn. His heat vision was fired again with poor accuracy, melting the roof off a convertible and setting fire to a coffee shop but its purpose was accomplished. Doomsday, with its bony face, turned to reengage its annoyance and charged silently, sending a shiver down his spine from the unnatural way this primitive monster was acting.

At the last moment, Doomsday poured on last surge of speed at the target coming towards him and Conner was so startled by the shift in pace that he was only able to shield his face. The blow that followed caused a shockwave powerful enough for every outside table at the café set on fire to scatter like a flock of startled birds and finally freed an already unstable lamppost cemented onto cracked tarmac from the street to thud into a car knocked onto its side and finally activating its car alarm.

Conner, on the other hand, had never felt such pain before in his life. He had brief memories, snippets that were coaxed out thanks to Luthor's doctors about Cadmus exposing him to Kryptonite. He remembered the blue taking them away period until they took it away from his stasis cell and the green… It hurt him a lot; his constant companion made him sweaty and feverous and stole all his strength. The burning from the slash marks in his forearms that had torn clean through his invulnerable skin was so unexpectedly painful, almost as sore as exposure to the green rock his crash site, a large bank staircase was barely noticed. Neither were the screaming employees still inside for some unknown human reason when money turned them illogical.

Conner picked himself up from the stone rubble and, opened one eye; to his horror, Doomsday was lurching towards him like a great ape.

"_Keep him away from the large building with the globe on it and its surrounding areas and you will be fine,"_ Mercy, Lex's secretary said into his communicator. _"S.T.A.R. labs has almost finished it's clear out and is retreating to Gotham."_

"What," Conner said, wincing from the jerky movements. He was really feeling the cuts in his arms that had trashed his solar suit, "About the chemical plant?" He was sure Lex had said the Luthor Corp facility was a chemical decommissioning plant.

"_It's nearer the outskirts that you according to our tracking device have just passed,"_ Mercy commentated, _"Are you alright? If you can, try to force it back out of the city."_

Conner levitated back to his feet, stretching to motivate him and prepared for the attack from Doomsday.

"Any suggestions?" he asked tersely.

"_Mr Luthor has theorised that the Doomsday creature is only vulnerable when in mid-air. While it lacks any sort of flight ability, clearly it still can leap a fair distance. If you catch it at the right place, you might discover something we might've…"_

"I have a better idea," Conner said, suddenly inspired. He landed on the ground and slapped both his hands on the road. He used his tactile telekinetic abilities to generate a field from outside his body towards his target. On the way, he corralled the concrete the field passed through around Doomsday from the cracked road into a ball, using his heat vision to fuse it into place when it smothered its target; with one last shockwave forcing another gas pipe to explode for extra propulsion punted it perfectly vertically into the air. Somehow, without any previous experience a complicated battle plan was enacted upon while watched by the helicopter he'd been ignoring.

"I'm actually getting the hang of all this," the teen said sounding both proud and confounded. "All that practice with the oil cans." Conner intended to finish his plan by flying up and throwing the ball out towards the open fields of Metropolis to continue the battle with lesser collateral damage when Doomsday shattered his prison with frightening ease, stealing Conner's confidence and crash landed on top of some poor person's abandoned sports car. It, the beast seemed if it was even possible to be more enraged than before and upped its speed like it had gotten bored of playing with him.

For the first time in the battle, Conner actually wanted to wet his pants. His first attempts to keep the thing from advancing were firing more of what had been proven before to keep it back. His heat vision was completely useless, his fear and the shakes its feet made forcing the unsteady as it is super being to jump every time it moved meant they were about as useful as singing to it. The beams missed every time; the red heat vision instead destroyed cars, incinerated anything combustible and even set fire to an abandoned art gallery. When the first bony haymaker went just wide of Conner's face, he had never been more grateful for the basics of hand to hand combat inserted in his mind by the Genomorphs on the orders of Cadmus.

Sure, he was too shit scared to even try to punching it back, holding onto an irrational fear that hurting it might make it even angrier. Its advance, via shoving Conner back deeper into the city, soon made his mind up to fight back.

His first jab's pressure caused slates on an older house parallel to them to come crashing down and windows to shatter once more. A very exclusive skyscraper, with a magnificent stain glass window, shattered and made one hell of a tinkling sound as it came down like a demonic form of rain. His second blow was parried and the return haymaker was too dodged, but left a deep cut on Conner's cheek. The super teen's fear was stifled by his survival instincts and made him return with his own heavier punch at the opening that made him pull his hand back when the fist made contact with an extremely sharp bone that just about nearly sliced his fingers off.

It was the following blast of arctic breath surrounded by a street that looked like a tornado had struck it from both sides that bought Conner some breathing space. His open palms as he crouched down to strike the bony chin were soon augmented by his tactile telekinesis to avoid directly coming into contact that had Doomsday back in the air with just a few cuts to his hands. Conner bravely flew up and straddled it across the chest to try to ram it as far outside of the city as he could. It wasn't long, a second it seemed before the ice blown onto the monstrosity's face was cleared away and a double handed axe handle blow was ploughed into the super teenager's back.

Conner was unable to control his descent and crashed clean through the centre of an apartment building, bludgeoning through countless floors and landing painfully in the basement. He was swift to recover and blasted out at full flight speed, but was unable to stop the old housing block from collapsing in on itself sending a dust cloud into the sky.

His uniform was a wreck and the panel on his wrist was wrecked beyond repair. His torso was showing and most if not all of the arms and legs were shredded. It was not a suit made for durability, but for the absorption of solar radiation most efficiently into his body that loved it.

Doomsday didn't give Conner much chance for a breather, as he resumed his attack but lacking time to plan the teen in a panic went after him first. Which proved to be folly, as the grey behemoth's first punch penetrated the invulnerable skin with his bony claws, shattered his jaw and blackened his eye. The next one was missed by the teen flying into the air, only for his leg to be caught with an iron grip and for Conner to be swung like a club into an underground car park, hitting the main concrete supporting wall and collapsing an entire level on top of him in an instant.

Once more, Conner had destroyed a building and his promise to Lex was not being done properly. A sharp static sound was in his ear as he excavated himself from the ton of rubble scattering fine white dust and making him splutter. He caught sight of the communicator and found it was utterly wrecked too.

"Just great," Conner griped, looking for the monster. It was found having fun with the buildings around them making the teenager groan as the destruction had to be kept to a minimum. Team Luthor needed time to evacuate everyone. His first gig as a hero was not going very well. Conner blasted out at full speed and smashed Doomsday in the face as hard as he could with both fists. As Doomsday fell back, he had _slightly_ underestimated just how fast he was going and he went head first through a concrete wall into a convenience store, where a cowering old man was hiding with his wife holding a shotgun before he could stop. "Sorry about the mess," he apologised weakly, pulling out just as a bony fist made the hole larger and brought down the entire store on top of the old couple.

To alleviate his conscious, his x-ray vision saw they were alright under the rubble and that lack of attention cost him with the bony protrusions from a fist stabbed him again deeply in the face. He now was very dizzy, punch drunk, perhaps a minor concussion was setting in or/and shock from his injuries accumulating. One eye was puffing up, throbbing insistently and now the horrible feeling of warm blood dripping off his face was distracting him, instilling the old fear from the beginning that had been blocked out by the oath made to Lex.

"Where is Superman when you need him?" muffled Conner with his jaw broken making it painful and made Conner refrain from doing it again, _"I'm being killed here."_

That unhelpful thought didn't assist him when Doomsday took advantage of the punch drunk teen and laid in a further five punches into the torso and head. His world became one agonising burning pain that never stopped until one last colossal punch pummelled Conner through a brick wall and into a coffee shop like the one he had been working in earlier today.

His body collided with the glass counter, smashed his way past the shiny metal coffee machine before he finally came to a stop in the janitor's closet adjacent to the kitchen. His head was spinning from the blood loss; his puffy eye throbbed insistently like it was gaining vengeance by distracting the wounded warrior and his cuts stung like someone was spraying them in iodine. And, as for the concussion, the teen had never consumed alcohol, but this he figured was something to compare it to. As the urge to lay down for a long rest began to take him, alarm bells went off in his head. He had to stay awake! He couldn't fall asleep! He needed something, anything, to keep awake, but what? Without even thinking, he threw his head forward, rather unwisely head butting the plasterboard, causing the mop bucket to shake and reverberate from the impact across the floor.

"Must get up," Conner muttered, his super strength now out of control. His grip meant to stabilise him on a shattered piece of drywall crumbled into powder and he fell back onto his ass hard. "I better fly then," he conceded drunkenly. His vertical take-off was not planned well, as he shot through the tiled ceiling and back into the open sky.

The vertical view of Metropolis reminded him of a war zone that was on-going. The damage to the city was already enough to horrify anyone watching from an aircraft. Like the helicopter that had been stalking the fighting pair since it had begun and with his shaky control over his senses it was droning like standing next to an airplane engine to his sensitive ears trying to compensate for his poor vision. Doomsday, through his blurred vision, was moving away from him seemingly satisfied Conner was dead enough.

His next shots of heat vision proved to be inaccurate and quite ill advised. He incinerated plants to ashes, destroyed a million dollar mega screen streaming advertisements and actually scorched the 'Daily Planet' newspaper logo on the gigantic moving globe on the newspaper building's roof. Only one properly aimed beam hit its target and this was generous to call it a 'targeted' shot that bounced from its angle on the reflective protection the bones on its body seemed to have and started another fire, a shopping mall was going to be turned into blackened ash before fire fighters would get to it.

"_Not to self,"_ Conner thought, _"Work on my aim."_

But Doomsday was a slugger who never left a person alive, so its attention resumed on him. It ran at high speed, bounding like an armoured tank crossbred with a buffalo that caused widespread destruction in its wake. It was less keen to leap long distances in the inner city for some inexplicable reason, and Conner was grateful because it was reducing the body count of the stranded civilians, leaving less of Metropolis to demolish and subsequently rebuild because some of the 'intact' buildings had cracks running down their entire side.

Explosions and spurting water from fire hydrants became the anthem of chaos as well as the inert electrical cables that went taut then whiplashed through windows and walls alike with a crack to rival thunder. The teenager decided to stay up high up in the air. It was safer here. The projected maximum height of each leap hadn't been more than two hundred feet in the air. The intelligence report calculated that its weight prevented vertical leaps of any great size and relied on horizontal leap based propulsion.

But, alas, Doomsday wasn't a total idiot with an empty part where its brain was supposed to be based. The monster tried to leap and failed to grab its target. It repeated the process for a few time like a simple-minded child trying to catch a balloon floating away and Conner, eager for a respite, from his one sided ass kicking allowed him. It wasn't destroying things as much staying on one spot other than the road, digging a crater with naked force alone but it wasn't able to grab and maul him or do anything else to damage the city. Conner actually considered sticking his tongue out taking in as much sunlight as he could to replenish his diminished powers. His jaw still protested at anything moving in his mouth and an itch in his eye socket seemed worrying.

Doomsday proved his savvy in the end by smashing the building right next to him down by the foundations and let it fall like a chopped down red wood into his path. Conner was barely able to get out of the way, but wasn't paying attention to the speed of the beast that used an adjacent building with a convenient helicopter pad to use as a leaping pad to smash him in the face. To add insult to injury, the building starting with the helicopter pad came down like a house of cards, leaving more damage to clean up.

But Conner knew his time was running out. That blow made something go slack and then his entire body ached as if to tell him it was shutting up shop for the day. He wasn't a prize fighter. Sure, he didn't have a glass jaw, but punishment was punishment and only so much could be soaked up before the body gave out even if the soul was willing.

His new resting place, as it turned out was in the sewers. The teen had smashed through a fragile manhole and currently he was squirreled away in the smell of human filth. He gagged from the stench, blood threatening to exit his mouth that cut down his ability to draw breath comfortably and the heart pounding in his ears made it impossible to hear the rat that crawled over his arm to escape the melee until it was crawling on him. The last blow had hit his throat, possibly bruising his larynx or worse damaging his trachea.

"_So what do I do now?"_ he thought helplessly, "My body," he whispered pitifully unable to bring himself to even cry out in pain from his broken body, "My powers are…" His closed eyes, a forced reaction from the smell blinked open as his heartbeat that had felt timorous had mistaken the shaking of the ground for an extra fearful beat. He looked up, staring into the sun as he did with the blinking orb and grimaced at Doomsday looming down on him as if savouring his dying prey. In panic, his one usable eye discharged a heat beam that for once hit a critical point on its face. The bony weapon that was stricken, part of a macabre beard made the beast actually screech, make a _sound_ other than the heart wrecking silence for the first time. _"So,"_ Conner thought sagely, _"It's your bones that are your weakness. They must be sensitive or maybe…"_

With one last desperate effort that made him feel like he was taking Atlas's job, Conner pounced and took hold of the monster by the horns or in this case the beard like bone structure around its chin that ran up the circumference of its face. His tactile telekinesis lashed out like a cornered predator and forced the entire skeletal structure to viciously vibrate.

The monster shook like a disturbed bell. The monster according to his instincts was completely solid. Inside there was nothing to latch onto, neither flesh nor organ other than simply bone and whatever passed for flesh in this thing? It wasn't even truly alive by normal humanoid terms. But what kind of environment stimulated the evolution of an evil golem with no other desire than to obliterate?

Doomsday recovered (or more likely adapted) and its meaty palm grabbed his wrist, breaking it so as to disrupt his concentration and made to finish the plucky first timer once and for all. Conner defiantly kept his eyes open but it was very possible his hazy concussion suffocated the last of his logic.

Then, a miracle happened.

That miracle was in the shape of a tanned hand wearing the famous blue and red of Superman himself. The beleaguered man of steel, clenching the wrist of the monster tightly used his other hand to repeatedly pound his fist at super speed, something beyond Conner's experience making it seem to the naked eye like it was one titanic punch. It made the air literally ripple as if standing in the path of a jet engine prior to ignition and buildings untouched by the rampage started to sway while failing structures finally give up the ghost. This spectacular feat was stopped when Doomsday tried to push his enemy away with a drunken swing, only Superman must've seen the weakness the teen had shown to the world a few minutes ago, grabbed onto the white bone like spikes on its knuckles and _pulled_.

And damn, did the man throw his strength into the grip. His feet sank through the tarmac as if it was pudding in his attempt at gaining leverage. His ruined costume which normally left nothing to the imagination was unable to stop full disclosure of just how taut the man of steel's muscles went at making the groaning monster submit. The man of steel looked like a true hero with his resolute stare that never left the sight of his opposition.

"_So this man is my father?"_ Conner thought, his head light and fluffy, _"He makes me look like an idiot wearing white,"_ he joked despite the pain, _"But what a way to go down fighting. I actually made a difference. I showed Superman how to hurt you, mother fucking bitch!"_ His hand touched the slimy wall of the caved in sewer that he still remained in and not two minutes ago was positive was going to become his temporary grave. He gathered his wits, summoned more telekinetic energy from somewhere that wasn't either half dead or screaming at him in protest and dismantled the entire sewer wall right beneath Doomsday's feet brick by brick. The monster plunged into the ground, surprised, but the man of steel capitalised planting both feet onto its torso like a lever and tugged harder.

As it struggled to get free and fight off the discomfort it was feeling (Conner refused to believe that such a monster knew what pain was), Superman, despite his blackened eye, fired off his own heat vision into the monster's eyes and started pounding his fists between each blast. This went on for a bit, his hold never softening until Conner with some remaining strength and the slowly creeping numbing in his body that was spreading like a man going for a cold dip in the Arctic was determined not to die in a miserable hole flew up and physically grabbed Doomsday around the head. Despite the several new punctures into his forearms from taking hold of where its beard and hair of bone resided he saw the contact as a perfect excuse to resume pouring his tactile telekinetic powers into where it had hurt before. By lifting it up with him Superboy now rendering Doomsday helpless momentarily allowed for the distracted man of steel to let go and catch his breath.

"I guess I won't be getting that steak after all," were Conner's epitaph words. They were garbled but the meaning was enough for him. After all this time free of Cadmus, meeting his saviour Lex who helped retain the power that was now going to either kill him or it or both together at the same time and then getting the chance to make a difference with Superman and the world watching his heroic deeds. "This hero stuff," he began to say, his power vibrating through the struggling Doomsday who was pounding its lethal elbows into his sides that were having no effect with the teen wonder. He was in too much pain to notice anymore, "Is pretty satisfying."

That moment was when he lost conscious. He would reboot once his head hit the ground, but only in time to see on the floor a sideways view of Superman finishing the battle he started. His agitated blows, his loss of complete cool was perhaps due to the state of his city. Or maybe just maybe knowing his reputation it was because Conner Luthor was bleeding out from both sides of his ribs. It was getting harder to breathe now. It had to be his lungs that were the goners, his heart was beating like a war drum but life it seemed was resilient enough for a Kryptonian descendant to get to see the end of what Conner had started.

In what felt like the last moments of his life the myth of seeing your life flash before his eyes appeared false? Perhaps it was a human concept? Or maybe just the issue that he hadn't live much of one to have a montage on standby and Cadmus was barely a blur. Was it perhaps to observe close up the Superman, a champion for justice losing his cool? To see his father, the paragon of justice possess the will of a killer to tear apart the monster who would ruin his city and endanger one of it's would be defenders?

Then, the final blow came and it was a knock out. Superman blasted the Doomsday monster off its feet with one final earth shaking blow to the chin where it came to a total stop and never moved again. The ragged blue and red spandex wearing demi god of earth fell to his knees in exhaustion, his trademark cloak barely holding onto his body but he regained his marbles to remember the dying son he might never know. He stumbled on one bleeding leg but Superman made his way over and cradled the teen in his arms.

"I can get you some help kid," Superman tried to say in reassurance, his gaze looking over his broken body. "I cannot scan you with my x-ray vision, so I don't know how badly you're hurt so hold on. I can signal the JLA and… Why isn't it working?" Superman was tapping his inner eardrum irately. Conner remembered that Lex was going to jam all signals and tried to tell the man of steel to contact Lex. The enigmatic man would have left his personal channel open that monitored his suit's life support and allowed him to communicate directly but when the teenager tried to vocalise all this only a spray of crimson blood came out of the orifice. "You have to hold on kid," Superman pleaded, unwilling it seemed to move someone he couldn't scan and ignoring the red now staining his face and uniform. His eyes seemed to watch the heavens until a blast of red light went into the sky from his eyes and there in the horizon it might have been a trick of his bedazzled eyes but an overpowering orange colour briefly stained the blue skyline. Did Superman blow up a Luthor Corp satellite?

"_Superman better have a good lawyer,"_ Conner mused inwardly. He blamed it on the rattled brain and the concussion for his sudden bout of unwanted jest. The battle was over no doubt probably his life as well. Why not have some laughs about it?

"Batman? Thank god this is getting through to you. I can confirm Doomsday is down. Round up the Science Police, but don't let Team Luthor anywhere near this." Conner tried to inform him about his relationship with Lex and Team Luthor, but again only blood was coughed up. It seemed to remind the Superman no doubt a bit flustered about his work load today that the teenager was badly injured. "Activate the Zeta beam on my coordinates. We have a wounded hero. He has similar powers to my own but he's seriously hurt. Inform Hoshi that we have another patient for her."

Conner tried to protest, really he did. His hand grabbed Superman's shoulder and squeezed tightly enough for the father genetic donor to take notice. His compassionate eyes thought he was scared and tried to be reassuring by clenching an unwounded part of his arm. Conner forgot his original purpose there, his father holding him with respect and thought this wasn't such a bad place to end his life. Surrounded by his father and the green energy pulse that was descending from the sky…

"_Wait?"_ was his last word on earth, _"A green light? Fuck Lex is going to raise hell about this!"_

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A/N And there we have it Doomsday arc is over and yes if you hadn't noticed by now he does possess the full range of Kryptonian powers but weaknesses will appear both physically and psychologically soon enough. Now we get to see the chaos that comes next ^^

Thanks since I failed to mention it last time to my helpful friends Maneyan and hockeygoalie1992 for looking this over for me. Without them this wouldn't have been possible and the grammar would cause your eyes to bleed! Check out their works as you no doubt if you are a Naruto fan know Maneyan's famous 'Ouroboros' and if you are a man or woman of good taste for crossovers involving Harry Potter you'll know the legendary hockeygoalie1992


	3. Chapter 3 Parental Issues

"Young Justice New World Chronicles"

"The Lost Son"

By Heliosion

Chapter 3: Parental Issues

Disclaimer: I obviously don't own the DC universe or its affiliates for if I did I wouldn't have grown men flying around with their underwear on the outside of their spandex pants. Or make a superhero whose special power is driving a taxi.

Oh yeah this is based in an original multiverse world. In this case Earth X for this is a fanfiction and I haven't had the opportunity to read every single comic produced by DC hence continuity will suffer so I will create my own in the spirit of Young Justice.

**Constructive reviews only people**

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The Watchtower was the third of its name to take the title. From its humble beginnings as a cramped satellite orbiting the Earth, to a dedicated space station, before finally expanding with an all-out moon base looking down benevolently over the people of planet earth, it served as one of the secret headquarters of the famous JLA, or Justice League of America. The base, housing both terrestrial and alien technology, had the capacity of holding hundreds of people at any one time. A self-sustaining environment, expansive hangars for the infamous Javelin all terrain spacecraft, holographic projectors that could fool you into thinking it was the real thing, teleport devices and other high end technology to make the task of its inhabitants of safe guarding humanity from both internal and external threats as relaxed as possible.

In this universe Superman, the chairman and the rest of the League had used this place to plan from crisis to crisis. It had never faltered, never wavered in its task of housing the heroes that served with distinction both living and those who died on duty. Some called this particular Watchtower their home all year round and prospered as if they lived on the earth.

Today, it had seen its darkest day. A mere three hours ago, after years of repelling magic users, apocalyptic alien invasions, demon gods and rogue governments, its soul had taken a ghastly sucker punch to the gut from one foe. By a monster, for there was no other way of describing the thing with power that rendered the whole League askew in one momentous battle, casting its veteran members aside with a solution requiring the powers of Superman and one unknown child with great power himself to finally stop it in its tracks. Even then, the outcome hadn't been certain.

It was the day a league of experienced superheroes; icons of modern heroism were shown to not have the aura of united invincibility that the world relied on to feel safe. There was neither Martian valour nor an Amazonian powerhouse to save the day. No power ring created by an intergalactic police force conjuring marvels of the imagination to seize the moment for a last minute victory or any other wonders their other members could conjure up.

No Superman, the greatest hero this planet had ever seen with a record no other man could boast about saving the Earth had to watch on helpless soaking up precious sunlight after failing the first time to stop Doomsday's rampage. Meanwhile, as his body protested for the longest ever time in his life with shaky sight he watched on as a child, a teenager at most with unusual powers similar to his own in most respects plus some more fight for his life to protect Metropolis in his stead until his body was ready to resume combat.

What made it worse for his conscious, his greatest ally in the battle for justice and freedom was the kid made a bigger contribution to the efforts to subdue the creature than any other at great cost. While the Justice League were turned into hospital patients and Superman brawling across the mid-west causing havoc and destruction as they went, this boy, no he deserved to be called a _man_ for what he had done not only contained Doomsday, the boy turned the tide of the war in their favour.

This mere boy had shown the wisdom, strategy and savvy of a seasoned brawler (even though with his performance it was obvious he was but a mere rookie) to go man to man with the monster rightfully known as Doomsday. Superman had seen the desperation in the kid's eyes, had heard precisely the moments when the child's body was under siege and in pain. It had been maddening to be relegated to the position of spectator while the Sun invigorated his fleshy armour so to return to battle.

This teenager who had exposed the final weakness of the alien intruder and won the day had suffered greatly with injuries undiagnosed due to an unusual tissue density that had made him call in the drastic steps of bringing him to the Lunar Watchtower with the other wounded veterans. The mystery defender of Metropolis who had saved the city - suffering extreme injury in the process - had bought the city's usual defender some breathing space. While keeping the well _metropolis_ from falling into ruins, he had not just kept the major damage to a minimum, he had also saved the nation's capital that was next in line probably in its rampage, the world after that, maybe, and most of all, the Man of Steel owed his life to the young man. His injuries endured in the countrywide war had never happened before. Magic had hurt him, green kryptonite had made him feverish and vulnerable to physical harm, but there had never been a moment when the solar generators had to be used for an hour to return him to perfect health.

Now, Superman sat helplessly as he had done the night his father had died from a heart attack in the infirmary bed where the boy slept peacefully, only leaving to change into a new suit. The newcomer was made out of bandages and untreated for his wounds due to his invulnerable skin that resisted all attempts from its grateful host to help it heal. His eye, jaw and ribs were especially hurt and Doctor Light AKA Kimiyo Hoshi was running urgent blood work to figure out a way of surgically intervening with the comatose boy.

The infirmary was empty at the moment apart from the pair of them. The other leaguers in this order the Flash with his accelerated healing, Wonder Woman and her somewhat minor injuries to the Martian Manhunter and the others who had engaged the target that up to the moment Kal El was forced to destroy a Luthor Corp satellite had come and gone. The ones who had been classed as walking wounded had remained behind with their minor injuries to help the clean up thinking others were assisting the Man of Steel. It had been a mishap after mishap in communications that were going to be addressed with a team training session in communication skills that was not going to appeal to the more stoic crowd (Batman notwithstanding. Clark knew Bruce was going to not like it) and appeal to the US government to arrest Lex Luthor for jamming official communications channels.

Not that it would matter. It was a token gesture, a gesture with no real belief of it ever working out. With slippery Luthor, it was more likely the JLA would be sued for damaging a billion dollar satellite that was probably illegal in design.

The infirmary was the most hygienic building in the entire base. It was airtight, spraying a scentless alien gas that stopped any molecules of dirt or viruses from entering or leaving the ward. Every entrance or access port intensively screened and decontaminated you as you entered and left without you noticing a thing. The beds were automatically changed each day, even if someone was laying on one, and the perimeters of each bed contained another intangible barrier that cleaned your hands if you touched the patients. Between the use of separate alcoves per bed and the sparkling surgical equipment, Superman thought it was just a little bit too clean for his liking. He was a farm boy growing up, used to a little dirt in his everyday life, no matter how much he tried. To see a world so clean was almost alien to him, if you noted the irony in his words. Still, the showers used the same technology in the locker room if you needed to freshen up in an instant instead of taking your time with hot water and soap.

In the back of his mind, Superman, the mild mannered reporter Clark Kent knew he was very late for a date with Lois Lane, his wife of several years and Supergirl, Kara his cousin whom had been away at the very first meeting of the Young Justice in Happy Harbour on the Mount Justice installation during the incident. He knew both would raise hell for standing them up after the television footage of him appearing like someone running blindfolded through an industrial thresher that would seriously make them worry. That worry would turn to agitation and finally anger that would only cool down after Lois and her protégé of losing her cool when it came to his cousin, Kara, calmed down.

But for some reason, the Man of Steel was unwilling to leave the side of this strange boy. It was the mystery maybe. Who was he? What was he? What powers did he possess? So far, Clark, with his eidetic memory, had counted several of his own powers and abilities. Such as heat vision, invulnerability, arctic breath, super strength and flight. He had noted the psychic power as well that almost enviously worked the best against Doomsday's weakness than his hazmat grab and pull approach.

Well, that made him almost suspicious as to what his origins could be. His species, for example, was yet to be discovered if it was the case the mystery person was an alien. There was only one other race of aliens that had powers remotely passing off as Kryptonian when one of them was bathed in a yellow sun for decades, and that was the Daxamite, Mon El, whom Clark had met in his childhood. It brought up a whole bunch of other feelings, such as the guilt he felt when he was forced to banish him to the Phantom Zone to save his life and other melancholy emotions about his Smallville years.

But, his heart and mind forever dedicated to the safety of his adopted home world was still in a whirl, sucking away his personal feelings as easily as when his reporter instincts took over everything else when hunting down a story. Was he an alien that chose to arrive on earth to battle with Doomsday? If so, the story that could be told would be intriguing. The mysteries of just how this powerful humanoid came to be there as a defender of Metropolis had solutions to certain questions that could be crucial. For a man that was overly optimistic in nature and known worldwide as such to his legion of supporters, he also was practical about everything. Again something that had been forged again by his days on the farm growing up. His optimism, in fact, could be seen as a shroud for his underappreciated sagely perception for usually aliens came in larger numbers than this.

This teenager could hold vital clues of a future invasion. Perhaps warn them about other Doomsday type aliens, no matter how much that made him apprehensive about the thought of such a thing. If so, the stranger found in white rags could give them information on how to deal with them or repel an invasion if the worst scenario played out. Clark had already thrown Doomsday onto a passing meteor steering it on a perfect course for around a hundred light years at least from any planetary systems for leaving the invulnerable mass on Earth had been too risky. There was no visible means, according to preliminary tests at S.T.A.R. labs, of anything that could determine if it was really deceased or not, unsettling both the federal and state government. Nothing had ever lived to their knowledge without taking a breath or functioned without any internal organs. It didn't even seem to have a tongue or any oral fluids like salvia.

It was simply too big a risk for it to remain on the Earth when the two people who had stopped it had to nearly be killed to accomplish the task. Superman likened it to leaving a loaded gun next to a homicidal maniac across the street from an orphanage with the front door open.

He planned to remain on this vigil over the JLA's new friend until the doctor came back to give them the results, all night if that was what it took. Something compelled him to do this, for Doomsday had shaken his beliefs and probably would remain to do it for a while. The blood sample tested on at this very moment had come from one of the numerous wounds and the results pending were being rushed to hurry up what should have already been emergency treatment. But the child wearing an oxygen mask and boxer shorts underneath those crisp sheets was resilient. With help from a respirator, his breathing was best described as haggard but stable. The bandages were seeping blood but compressed tightly to avoid death from bleeding out.

The mystery man whom Clark had dubbed rather unoriginally as John Doe wasn't going to die anytime soon, according to the limited diagnosis from Kimiyo. There had been no sign of cardiac distress or respiratory failure, not that they had the means of monitoring it past a crude device monitoring his pulse.

"Entering infirmary Wonder Woman," the automatic computer maintaining the systems of the Luna Watchtower chimed as the metal doors opened with a hiss.

"How's he doing, Kal El?" Wonder Woman asked. She was still dressed in her infamous red shoulder less brassiere breastplate with golden wing tip design along the cleavage down to her stomach where it met her 'v' shaped blue shorts that were of course skin tight and emblazoned with white stars. "Has he shown any sign of improvement?"

"He hasn't regained consciousness yet," Kal El lamented in his usual heroic manner. The man had the conscious that thought of every inaction and injustice committed on Earth. At times, it really made him feel down, but her presence as one of his oldest friends had given him a lift, a respite from the gnawing raw feelings directed at their unconscious ally. "Kimiyo is doing a blood test to find out if he is an alien."

Wonder Woman, with her tiara clad head, shook her long black hair as if to hide her guilty expression at looking at the teenager who had saved a major city practically on his own. His own black short locks were buried under the bandages covering his ravaged face.

"Did someone so young stop that monster, Kal El?" she asked, more as a rhetorical question than expecting to be answered, "Bruce hasn't received your full report yet on what happened in Metropolis and wants more than your oral statement. All satellites and news channels except for one helicopter in Metropolis belonging to Luthor Corp were jammed at the time."

"I _watched_ him from the moment he began the fight," Clark stated for the first time to anyone else, "I _watched_ him destroy buildings that he had been thrown through and _watched_ our new friend doing this with practically all my powers even scratch the globe on the Daily Planet building with my heat vision, in a nonstop battle with someone I _watched_ defeat all of you."

The woman seemed alarmed at that last part, wincing before at her equally guilty feeling comrade, her friend of many years use the word 'watched' in his sentence like a taboo. Her eyes almost comically widened at the implications accidently thrown at her when her deductive reasoning caught up with her incredulous thoughts that she had to be thinking about the young man.

"Is he a Kryptonian?" she asked carefully, knowing his legacy as the last son of Krypton was a touchy subject. A chair matching his own smooth almost fleshy material that moulded to the shape of your ass rose up from the immaculate floor for Wonder Woman to rest easily on and crossed her legs.

That one thought had actually been discounted before being considered. Was he a survivor from Krypton? It wasn't the first with Kara just having a slower ship than his own vessel. Had someone else took heed of his father's warnings and sent their child away to safety before the planet blew up from the inside? Wilder theories recalled there could be an even more unbelievable story to be told. A remnant of a lost universe like Powergirl was also a possibility or a cast off from a future alternate time line. Clark Kent had learnt through his times as a superhero not to write off any explanation, no matter how insane until all the facts were there to tell him the full story.

"I never considered it," Clark openly admitted, showing he was only human well mortal anyway and wasn't perfect, making errors like everybody else. "I assumed he was maybe a Daxamite. They have powers similar to mine."

"Well I will sit with you while we wait to find out what is going on," she said supportively, "Or I could sit with our hero while you go and assure your family that you are okay Kal El."

"If that is alright," Clark said, offering her with his drawn out statement the chance to back out. He did need to call home to tell them everything was alright and that was probably why she had arrived to talk to him. Lois Lane (she kept her surname professionally) with Ma had chosen to watch him on the talk show (where he'd been prior to the Doomsday encounter) in Smallville and would be waiting patiently with Kara for an update if she wasn't already on the Orbital Watchtower. She was a potential reserve, as were all the sidekicks or apprentices were made to go if available, in case they were required during an Omega alert situation.

"I think I can spare some time for our guest. Kimiyo can call you if she is done while you are away."

Superman flashed his famous reassuring smile at his friend and left the infirmary hastily towards the command centre. He did this by going through several corridors with views of the lunar surface with moving walkways. He bypassed the convenience with his brisk pace, ignoring everything going on around him until he entered a lift that took him directly to the Command Centre.

After some security checks, utilising retina and other scans, the blast-shielded sliding door was opened. The Command Centre was the heart and soul of the Justice League. Inside contained quite possibly the most advanced computers and equipment in the entire star system. Several members of the Justice League were manning the consoles, such as a Green Lantern, Black Canary, who had miraculously had been only blown away by the kinetic force generated by Doomsday's punch displaying her martial art prowess in keeping her alive, and Red Tornado, the android was also hard at work after swift repairs. His had been the unlucky break, smashed to into scrap before they understood what they had gotten themselves into. A gigantic sphere of the world was projected using holographic imagery in the centre of the oval room tracking every possible signal, image captured on cameras or internet signals in the world searching and compiling as much as it had access to. From there, a situation room with a circular table was set up in the back next to two armoured doorways with restricted signs on them. They led to the armoury and prison cells, or rather in the latter, to the private lift that led two hundred feet below the crust of the moon to where the maximum security cells were located.

Superman strolled over to an available communication station, accepting and returning greetings from fellow leaguers hard at work deciphering the circumstances regarding Doomsday. One of them, Hawkman was tracking the trajectory of the meteor sending their latest enemy away from earth.

"How's the kid?" Flash asked, with a fresh costume on and his usual energetic presence that belied the injuries he had endured. "I hear he hasn't woken up yet."

"Is he a security risk?" Batman said, looming from his roost on the upper level that was an access terminal used to access the gigantic storage facility for all the JLA personal files down below.

"The kid hasn't woken up yet and we can't treat any of his _serious _injuries until we work a way of penetrating his skin. It appears to be invulnerable. I need to make a call and get back to him. Diana is sitting with him right now while I'm here."

Knowing the entire league was now eavesdropping on the public conversation, Superman excused himself and activated the communication system. After a few moments of the dial tone, the monitor based in the Kent farm barn was turned on and a harried pair of women was ready to interrogate him.

Well, one of them. With a head of black flowing hair like his friend Wonder Woman, Lois Lane nee Kent was a classic beauty. She wasn't too tall or too muscular, but fit as a fiddle. She sat on a bale of hay with her legs crossed, her slender form on display and her arms folded that made the invincible man almost happy normality still existed in his life. She was wearing the Superman 'S' shield t-shirt in black she normally used to tease her husband when she was bored, but today she seemed livid as hell and using it to be ironic considering how close he had been to dying.

"Martha!" Lois cried out to the house. "Clark is here!" She returned, her stormy, blue-eyed gaze back to the Man of Steel, who froze. There was some muffled laughter behind him and his super hearing immediately informed him it was Wally making the noise. It wasn't fun sometimes to be chewed out by his wife, and she had plenty of practice before she knew of his secret identity and afterwards. "You have a lot of explaining to do, buster!" she stated, building her steam with a jabbing finger. "You're mother has been terrified. I've been terrified too! All the news reports contradict each other. Some are claiming you were nearly killed, one idiot claims your heat vision defaced the sign on the Daily Planet building and…"

"Calm down, Lois," Superman interjected, "One, as you can see I am fine. I did get hurt from fighting Doomsday, but I was given some solar radiation treatment here and I am fine now with a fresh suit on too." As if an afterthought, he added, "And I didn't damage the sign. That was the person who helped me to defeat Doomsday."

"Look, Clark," she said almost disbelievingly, "There were reports of things melted like what your heat vision can do and there were lots of fires that fire crews said live were started by intense heat bursts and the only member of the Justice League with matching abilities, Captain Atom, was shown on television to be among the Leaguers taken out by Doomsday in the first attack."

"Lois, that wasn't me," he insisted in his usual calm fashion. He was not a man when doing his role as Superman to shy away from conflict, but this was his wife. She knew how to needle him into submission. She'd plenty of practice over the years to learn.

"Then who the hell managed to cause nearly half a billion dollars' worth of damage, then Clark? All the property destruction with fires or the melted objects were done by intensely generated beams of heat Clark. If it wasn't you then have you got something to say to me? You have some other secret cousin from back home apart from Kara I should know about?"

"Oh thank god, Clark," was the welcome distraction from his newshound of a wife. His mother was sweating from exertion, but was still looking well for a woman well into her late seventies. She was wearing a chequered red shirt, wellington boots and an overcoat that was perfect for working on the farm with her heavy jeans on. "I've been so worried about you, son!"

"I'm sorry, Ma," Clark said abashed and ashamed that it took Diana to make him assure his mother. Ma looked almost ashen with worry. "To have worried you so much, but I had to deal with something up here that was very important and I couldn't find the time to call. I am really sorry." Clark was quite proud of that answer. No way did he want Lois to know just yet how close he was to dying today or get a glimpse of a potential alien saviour until they knew more about it or she would be on him until the newcomer gave her an exclusive. It didn't matter that John Doe was on the moon. Nothing stopped Lois Lane from getting her story.

But the little comment that nobody knew about their guest was suspicious. Luthor Corp was the helicopter on the scene watching the action and it was his satellite was what was causing the interference. There was a pattern somewhere, but nothing made sense so far. But something involving Lex Luthor was definitely going on. What part did he play in either the teenager or Doomsday's encounter? He had created monsters before… It was definitely being added to the list of questions needed answering once they had a way to heal their new hero.

"It's alright, dear, I know you have work to do with the League and I'm always proud of you for that, but try not to make a mother worry, honey," she said pleasantly tilting her glasses with the scowl of Lois behind the old woman for not scolding him. "What time will you be home tonight? I can have something left out for you when you get in."

"It'll be late," Clark said apologetically, "We need to organise ourselves after what happened and monitor the situation with the rescue teams on all the disaster sites. We've already been told we aren't needed in Metropolis with Team Luthor leading the clean-up. Hopefully, we will be done sooner than I expect."

There was no way in hell Clark was going to leave his newfound ally until he was awake and capable of speaking. There were too many uncertainties from today's activities for the watchdog of the world to simply put back until it was good for his schedule.

"You are hiding something from me, Smallville," Lois mouthed silently and to his credit Clark Kent hid his surprise at being discovered about his desire to remain and watch over the teenager in the infirmary as long as possible. Sure, people like Martian Manhunter and maybe Wonder Woman would be happy to sit with the boy overnight in case he woke up, but with his powers it would be dangerous to have him wake up disorientated.

"That is good, dear," Martha Kent said gleefully, "So, what do you want me to make you for dinner? I could make you…"

"Superman to the infirmary," announced Kimiyo Hoshi or Doctor Light over the public announcing system installed in every compartment, "With haste please. The results of the blood test have been most illuminating, please hurry."

"I have to go now, Ma," Clark said hurriedly. What was so wrong about the blood test? Was it something horrible for the poor boy to go through? Did they not find his species at all and had no idea how to heal John Doe? "League business calls. See you later, Lois."

"Yeah _later_," she said with eyebrow raised. Superman inwardly grimaced. She would be questioning him tonight before bed. "Be sure to check in with Kara. She teleported to the Orbital Watchtower the moment, the battle entered Metropolis."

"I will," he promised, "See you later!" He waved to his mother and wife then turned off the panel.

"I'm coming too, Clark," Bruce Wayne drawled. The bat leapt from his perch, his cloak fluttering ominously until he was standing directly next to the unabashed Man of Steel. The costume clad duo stared each other down for a moment before Superman, in his hurry, assented to his friend accompanying him and they made for the elevator. The League had gone silent during those moments and had only regained their powers of speech by a loud cough from the Martian Manhunter, whom had been the only one not to stop working in the oppressive silence that only the legendary duo hadn't sensed.

They exited the elevator and walked down the appropriate passageways showing their usual views of the lifeless Lunar surface before they both were standing outside of the infirmary door.

"Are you sure it is safe for him to be here?" Batman stated finally in a tone that demanded an honest answer. "The footage I have seen that Luthor has released shows our mystery guest having identical powers to yours."

"I am here if we have any problems," Superman said like his words would end the argument amicably. "If he should be an enemy I can handle him. But we don't know that until we find out what he is and where he is from."

"You better be right," Batman warned, taking a step to trip the invisible alert system that scanned his whole body in a green light. Superman mirrored this gesture never dropping his stare from the unaffected non meta-human whom the invincible man could kill by sneezing.

"Entering infirmary Batman, Superman" the automatic computer chimed for the second time within an hour as the metal doors opened with a hiss.

Doctor Kimiyo Hoshi was a woman with several degrees, a medical doctor by trade but could hold her own in other fields such as astronomy. She was a typical Asian woman, Japanese in descent meaning short and thin. She had shiny black hair that was impossibly reflective and was wearing a clean white lab coat and black blouse with matching skirt and sensible shoes. She was holding a pad presumably holding the results but as the pair went inside Superman took note of something that the Batman bluntly announced.

"Where is Diana? Wasn't she meant to be keeping an eye on him?"

"That is part of what we need to talk about," Kimiyo said hurriedly showing an agitation that did not befit a woman of her profession. Superman guessed he had been distracted by all that had happened today but her cheeks were more rouge than usual from exertion perhaps running from the laboratory on the other side of the base and she wouldn't make eye contact with him.

"Is something wrong?" Clark asked, staring at the bed of the teen for the first time only to find him missing. Panic wracked his heart when so many morbid feelings past through him then out again. When had he become so attached? "Is he…"

"No, no, no," Kimiyo insisted to alleviate her friend, "He isn't dead. We had him moved to the solar radiation chamber to begin his treatment. Our results from his blood test indicate the teenager is well…"

"Spit it out doctor," Batman said impatiently. "This could be important information we need."

"Alright then but I think I need to tell Superman this in private. Wonder Woman has gone to get the other person this would concern."

"He can stay," Superman said, knowing Bruce wouldn't leave anyway if he was forced out through an airlock. "What is it? Why is it so important that I be told in private?"

"Well, Superman," she began taking a deep breath and closing her eyes before opening them again and she seemed awfully out of character with the way her wavering stare was forced on him. She was not a woman who acted submissively. Until very recently, her arrogance had been a very large feature of her existence. "The tests on his blood sample show that you are his father, Superman."

It didn't sink in at first. Denial was more than just a river in Egypt. His own mind questioned his super hearing and made sarcastic jokes about getting a hearing aid. It did function enough for it to detect the beat that was skipped in Bruce Wayne's heart at the revelation that finally snapped Superman out of his funk if his friend's ears heard this impossible statement as well.

"I am his father?" he asked, seeking clarification for that rather surprising piece of news as you do when you find out you had a teenaged child you didn't remembering helping to create. It was rather hard to forget the process involved.

"Our DNA analysis confirms it and I ran this test four times. Half of his genetic material came from you. He is half Kryptonian," she stated quite empathically, handing him the pad showing a simulation of his son's, (that did freak him out admitting it) helix like strand of DNA. He recognised his own species' genetic sequences, read the little flashing red bar declaring the patriarchal DNA donor but who was the woman that donated the other half? "You are without a doubt the father of the boy."

"Do you know who the mother is?" Bruce asked brusquely, taking over the relevant questioning as the world's greatest detective whilst his friend reeled from the revelation.

"We do actually have the mother profile on our system!" she answered evasively with a pitched voice, "Wonder Woman has gone to bring her here."

"Can you not tell us now while we wait?" Batman pressed.

The woman shook her head and stood up stiff and proud to repel the glare of the Batman used to having his body language shout out the violence his body was capable of.

"It won't matter for five more minutes Batman, be patient."

"Can you at least tell us if the mother is human or not?"

"No I won't," she replied stubbornly.

Clark Kent, empty of words to say to this point saw the end of the interrogation buying him the small amount of time he was given to take in this new situation chose to fall back on the one thing the world knew him for. The man poured on his humanity.

"Will he be alright now with the treatment?"

The woman smiled at his statement and took the pad off him that his absent minded strength had left a crack on. She pressed a button and a live action camera was showing the interior of the solar cage as it was called a few floors down. It was a narrow CAT scan like machine containing a strapped down boy of steel (transported directly thanks to an internal Zeta beam) being baked to a crisp by hundreds of powerful sunlamps.

He searched for the similarities between father and son. What he had missed that should have been so obvious. He imagined them sharing the same chin as he had done in High School, the same colour of hair, albeit his was a lot shorter than his own had been at that age. Clark super imposed his own teenager face onto, well, Superboy and if he was mortal enough not to cause a structural breach he would have banged his head off the wall for not seeing it.

It seemed so obvious now. The powers, the similarities in looks as well but who was the mother? Why was he so old? He hadn't even had sexual relations with anyone until he was nineteen and Lana Lang had finally consented. But there wasn't simply enough time to have a child be born and for the first few years of living in Metropolis, the pair had regularly met up and she had never shown any signs of being pregnant. And after they had broken up, Clark had never been with another woman until Lois married him.

That raised a lot more questions than it supplied answers. Who was the mother? The boy displayed meta-human abilities unrelated to the genetic code of the Kryptonian race. Did that make Lois the mother? That implied time travel had brought his arrival to the twenty first century? But that too was for a fact impossible. His time among the Legion of Superheroes was drilled in about how Brainiac 5 had been the creator of time travel technology and that was a thousand years in the future.

Superman could already feel the migraine coming. All this impossibility coming to be in one day was like the universe was conspiring against him. First, throw in something that could kill him, add a dash of a stranger saving the day then throw in a handful of revelations about him being the father to this teenager and now he was going to meet the mother of his baby that could or could not be his wife Lois.

God, could this get any worse?

"Are we beaming her from earth?" Batman beseeched. No, the Batman just had to ask the question he had been afraid to say.

"No," Doctor Light said, offering more and looking more uncomfortable by being asked. That sealed the nail in the coffin. If time travel was involved Lois Lane was being cheated on or wasn't around to produce said offspring or dare he say it divorced to allow him to sleep with other girls.

Could this day get any worse?

"Entering infirmary Wonder Woman, Troia, Wonder Girl," the computer said as if timing itself to speak just as he made the stupidest decision to test the universe's sense of humour.

"Kal El," a chilled Amazonian warrior greeted coolly comparable to, say, the surface of Pluto during the winter.

"Look, Diana, I…" His embarrassing gibberish that would have followed was replaced by an even greater indignation as the infamous lasso of truth was roped around his waist and tightened to the point his arms were cramping.

Wonder Woman stormed in like a bat out of hell holding the other end of the lasso. She was angry, violence worthy angry and had a glare that had sent villains fleeing from the planet, pissing their pants in horror. Behind her the two suspects of being the person that might have slept with him.

Number one of the mama list was Troia, or the former Wonder Girl. Donna Troy was five years younger than her older sister at nineteen years of age. She was a younger mirror of her sister with the same glossy black locks, tanned skin and unearthly beauty encased in a black one piece sparkly costume that accentuated her curves, especially her breasts and natural beauty. On her arms were the infamous gauntlets that could repel bullets and lasers and her black choker, knee height boots and loose belt only reminded Superman of how beautiful she actually was. She was the former protégé of her sister, as well tagging along with her sibling before the age of superhero teams that came just a bit too late for the girl who had volunteered to become a mentor for the Young Justice.

She also was a treasured sibling; one that Diana had jealousy hoarded when they were children protecting her from Pegasus horses and monstrous beasts when they explored their home land of Themyscira. Diana had told him enough stories over coffee that made him glad the rope of truth was being applied before the castration with her magical sword. It was a running joke of the Flash at parties to pity the man who that girl brought home to meet the family.

The other was just as unappealing as the choice for mother. She was even younger, barely sixteen years of age and the daughter of Zeus when he had come down from Olympus for a joy ride with Doctor Helena Sandsmark, a simple archaeologist. The product was the current Wonder Girl A.K.A. Cassandra Sandsmark, a blonde unlike her raven haired sisters and the same as the queen of their land. Cassandra or Cassie to her friends obtained her powers by appealing to Zeus. Later, she would obtain a lasso of her own like the one Diana carried, only it delivered bolts of lightning directly from Zeus's own hand when she was angry, which was crafted by her benefactor of the moment Ares, god of war, who increased her powers to the level until recently with the aid of the former and latter gods she was guided on how to unleash her demi-god nature making her nearly the equal of those who came before her. She too was a beautiful child with a growing feminine figure and wore a red top cut at the stomach with a golden bird on the front and a yellow trim. Matching the gauntlets of her older superiors she chose to wear casual jeans with red stars marked on each thigh and simple shoes to show she had not originally been an Amazon.

Batman had taken a step back and Doctor Light, unhelpfully, had hidden herself away by a computer console while concealing poorly that she was eavesdropping in on the inquisition. Both of the potential mothers had taken positions around their prey but didn't seem hostile. Their heartbeats were both erratic, making identification of the mother harder to work out. They both seemed worried, anxious, but Wonder Woman held herself ready to disembowel him if she didn't get the answers the rope promised to provide.

"I am going to ask you a question, Kal El, so listen very carefully as I don't wish to repeat myself. Do you know anything about the parentage of that boy?"

As the rope's purpose denoted, the lasso of truth made him answer truthfully and without any hesitation for he truly had no desire to keep his very eager negative answer to her question away from her.

"I had no idea at all, Diana," Clark said truthfully, not like he had a choice to lie anyway.

"Have you any idea how you and my sister managed to have a child that Doctor Light says is chronologically sixteen years old?"

Superman felt a sweat run down his brow at that revelation. He had a sixteen year old child with a nineteen year old girl… in the future of course. That was always something or was it? Was he an old man when he did the dirty? His whole future plans could be ruined by the answers to said questions.

Yeah, even Superman went crazy sometimes.

"I have no idea," he swore solemnly. Batman was no doubt taking this all into his pathologically deductive mind and was analysing all the information on hand to make the correct questions for his son when he was healed.

Wonder Woman freed the captured Superman and tied up her lasso back around her waist. Both girls had let go of some weight from their shoulders and Cassandra hugged the older Troia with a devious smirk.

"Wow, I never saw that coming. He didn't get punched out for knocking you up, Donna."

Superman's mouth opened wide to retort but only a gaping mouth with nothing to say managed to do anything. It _was_ the worst-case scenario, no matter what if there was such a thing in a debate between a nearly underage girl and the treasured sibling of the most powerful woman in the world being the mother. Diana protected both, trained both and they might as well have been her daughters for how close they were.

Troia was an excitable, but dependable woman who really liked to interact and get along with everyone from his own personal observations, but right couldn't look him in the eye as the doctor had struggled earlier to do. This was the mother of his child, now the reality was sinking in… It was _really_ sinking in! Somehow he was a father! Him of all people! It didn't belong to Lois who would kill him. His mother was going to keel over. The child he shared with his best friend's _sister_ was a cross between Amazon and Kryptonian and had mental powers to boot.

Hell, Superman was shocked that Diana hadn't slugged him for _allegedly_ touching her precious sister.

That thought was turned into reality which she did very hard right after that thought entered his brain. She had turned her back to him and in a flash her bracer clad hand struck him while he was dazed. Her inherently magical nature had him on his ass with angry shouts in the background.

"Sister!" Troia cried out. "There is no need to hit him for this!"

"Yeah," Cassandra said, making him think for a second the majority was on his side, "You should have struck him harder for knocking up your sister with their age difference."

"Cassie! You are not helping," Donna cried out.

"I had to hit him for impregnating you in the future," Wonder Woman said with absolute calm, "I happen to agree with Cassie on this one. But, I suppose we can wait to find out if I have to send you home for the next twenty years. We can find out what happens when my nephew wakes up. Meanwhile, we can call in Kara and tell her what is going on."

Donna looked aghast at the suggestion. Superman wasn't in great favour of it either. "That would only make things worse before we know what happened!"

"Oh, you see that Diana," Cassie teased, "Troia has a crush on a married man." The tease was understandably met with a splutter from the woman who had taught Cassie how to tease people and fanning the flames of anger from the increasingly unreasonable Diana, diplomat and usually quite cool headed that right now was giving a rampaging monster a run for its money in the scary stakes. "But, hey, at least you know you're going to be an aunt now, Diana!"

Diana made a noise, something between an agonised grunt and the sound of a wounded beast, but instead of audibly answering, she helped the listening Man of Steel, who had chosen to play dead to his feet and was met by the three stares of the Amazon girls. Cassandra, with her playful, but curious look, Troia, who practically stared at his body before blushing like a virgin bride and Diana, who again made Superman happy that she had come in with the lasso and not a sword.

"How is he doing?" Diana asked the doctor.

"He's due to leave the chamber in an hour. Then we can ask him all you need to know."

"Good," Wonder Woman said almost quietly before, again without Superman stopping her or even reacting, slugged him across the jaw hard enough for him to stagger. "That was me showing my opposition to your union with my sister while you are a married man, Kal El."

"I understand," Superman said apologetically, rubbing his jaw. This was getting worse by the minute and Superman could only stare at the chamber his son was resting in. He wondered if the child was telepathic too and projected his thoughts, begging him to wake up and explain himself. Diana had already punched him twice. It wasn't inconceivable she might try something more drastic next.

The smirk Batman was sporting about the whole thing wasn't helping things either.

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A/N Yeah a little creative license but I needed a good doctor type and the arrogance was also slapped out of her. She's minor and I figured new universe, new Doctor Light. Also accept that this is a separate universe hence the Teen Titans or the Justice Society of America has never existed. ^^ Beta work conducted by the usual suspects ^^


	4. Chapter 4 Jail Break

"Young Justice New World Chronicles"

"The Lost Son"

By Heliosion

Chapter 4: Jail Break

Disclaimer: I obviously don't own the DC universe or its affiliates for if I did I wouldn't have grown men flying around with their underwear on the outside of their spandex pants. Or make a superhero whose special power is driving a taxi.

Oh yeah this is based in an original multiverse world. In this case Earth X for this is a fanfiction and I haven't had the opportunity to read every single comic produced by DC hence continuity will suffer so I will create my own in the spirit of Young Justice.

**Constructive reviews only people**

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His memory of the days of his birth before his independence day was fragmented at best, the early years of his creation prior to his emancipation impossible to determine. But the same recurring memories always haunted him when he drifted to sleep.

In his dreams, he always returned to his small world. A world made of glass, cold, heartless, frosted, fragile glass that contained his existence. His mind was chosen for him, his body made to order by the people that demanded he call them his leader.

For so long, nothing had been his own. What he learned, his views, his heart right down to the food and the air he breathed was carefully selected to maximise his potential. His education gave him no choice to choose what path to follow. What he read, what he was to understand, and his life goals even his purpose for which he was allowed to exist for. Everything belonged to everyone else and nothing was selected by him to decide.

Everything they did was branded a success or failure. The acquisition and stabilisation of the meta-human gene was dubbed a failure. His body was a failure for breaking down from the strain of harbouring incompatible D.N.A. The weakness for green kryptonite was still there, rendering him weak and malleable for them to probe, sample and collect data though they had hoped he would be less vulnerable because he wasn't fully alien, another failure. His powers as a Kryptonian were however a success, something to be studied and, if they could, they would have terminated him and begun once again with their minor success to work from. Instead, they tried to salvage their manufactured Superman and projected their negativity without ever saying a word to him that told him in no misunderstood circumstances what an utter failure he turned out to be.

It was not to say his life was horrible. They fed him, clothed, watered and groomed their pet like a good owner would. They taught him the horrors of war, battle and tactics. They beat the mentality of a saint, a heart that knew compassion towards his fellow man yet remembered he was different and had the power to save the world. He was to become a last step Superman, a replacement in case the real man of steel perished. But instead of his grand purpose, he was reduced in the end to a nuclear missile, a firework that would explode in one final great blast of greatness; the last step defiance for a world denied their greatest hero.

But one thing always remained. He was always so very cold. His feet were numb, his arms never seemed to ever stop rubbing together in an eternal battle for warmth and forever dizzy, ill with fever. He could never feel anything other than a cold metal floor or freezing opaque glass that always blocked the view of the outside world offering only blurred mirages to test the sanity of the prisoner. Only the green light of the diluted kryptonite gas keeping him caged could penetrate his gloomy world and the pets of the monsters that made him, taught him anything about the outside. They left him tame, aware on the brink of human mental endurance and when they were completed modifying their weapon, Project Kr was to be sent to sleep until humanity needed its powers for a final miracle.

Or that had been the hope, anyway. While they drained the kryptonite gas from his tube, hope had finally drifted into his body for the first time in his endless existence. The voices that weren't his own were silenced and for the first time in living memory, he wasn't huddling for warmth anymore. His body did not shiver or feel feverish. For the first time in his scattered memory borne from isolation and lack of socialisation, project Kr could feel, touch and move without the aches and pains of being bathed in low levels of kryptonite radiation.

However, it seemed that his weakness had also sheathed the power within him. The implanted abilities of a meta-human genome thought to never have synched with his alien body awoke from its slumber. The one thing the scientists at Cadmus had never calculated was for their fear of their own masterstroke to hold back the raw potential of their crafted god.

Nothing was remembered of his escape from Cadmus buried in their underground complex. There were fragments of waking up from the stasis chamber. Some of him flying and the intense battles fought in the underground levels to the surface. His instincts had been to survive while a painful throb, the failures in his body from his exertions had been his souvenirs. But the fear never left him when he glimpsed across Superman, his League following in his tracks until the next thing he was aware of was when he awoke in a hospital bed with Lex Luthor watching benevolently over him.

"Welcome to the world, my son," Lex had said. His assistant, Mercy, had smiled to him as well when they watched whom they would dub as Conner Luthor.

While never having a father, his teachers had taught him the right thing to address that statement.

"Hello, father," he said in a small voice, from a set of vocal cords that had never spoken a single word before. He had bathed in the warmth of the blankets that whole time, his voice muffled by his desire to wrap himself in the crisp hospital sheets. The cold was gone forever and his parental figures that every family had in them were waiting for him.

The nightmare was over, at last.

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He awoke from his nightmare to utter darkness.

"Keep calm," Conner whispered his words, obsolete and ineffective to the startled heart telling the truth about his state of mind as it gave off a beat that had been given a head start from the startled manner in which he awoke and was gaining ground. "Keep calm Conner Luthor," he said a bit louder hoping the drowning beat of the organ pumping blood throughout his body would listen to him.

But the less than rousing call to keep his cool was ignored. His blood pounded in his ears, his voice that continued its mantra weakened until it sounded like a rusted bicycle. Perspiration dribbled out of all his pores until his startled state fresh from its nightmare realised something rather important.

"Where are my clothes?" Conner whimpered. He attempted to reach down to touch the soft, tight material around his muscled thighs until something metal restrained him from going down past his hips.

The heart began to race.

"This is not Cadmus," Conner continued to whisper, arguing with himself. The psychiatrist had told him how to breathe and how to control his nightmares from manifesting on the waking world. "Investigate the scene. What do you remember doing last?"

Conner breathed deeply, battling his horrific claustrophobia and his fear of the dark. He made his tensed body relax as the logical centres of his mind were put to work.

His last memories were of fighting the monster known as Doomsday. The horrible battle that had laid waste to the central districts starting from the west side of Metropolis where, for the first, time Conner had been reminded he was a mortal being perfectly capable of dying. His recollection of the fallen Man of Steel lying beaten, broken and the last moments of his conscious participation that had the Man of Steel rendering the grey fiend unconscious, if not dead were vivid, almost haunting, like finding out deicide was possible.

But nothing else came to mind. Conner could recall, with his eidetic memory, almost everything of that day. All the malicious thoughts of letting down Lex, whom had placed so much faith in his abilities to save the world, the spine tingling terrors that had to have left a few dents in the metal chassis of the plane… Every single of those little gnawing insecurities, the little treasonous moments where he dropped his cool that sprouted when given the moment to strike like a hive of angry bees of the idea of going out to battle a monstrous beast that had flattened all of the world's mightiest heroes. Everything was in place in chronological order, right up to when he lost consciousness on the ground…

With those clues, he had nothing to verify where he could be now. Just the blackness that tripped off all his primal fears with a source back to the early days, the years before freedom was granted to him by chance. The teenager tested the heavy restraints again, applying more force and hearing them creak from the strain of his super strength, offered momentarily relief until his irrationality towards cramped and dark spaces retook control in the siege between his rational mind and his worst fears. Some part of his chamber was metal and cold to the touch… In his panic, the cold had been ignored, a third unwanted sensation that allowed involuntary reminiscing of those days. It was an old sensation, something he hoped never to again feel this way again like the feeling of being engulfed in green light.

So much of this reminded him of those people, those selfish uncaring beasts of people that could have stolen his faith in humanity forever had it not been for Lex and…

His heart skipped a beat at the aggressive, continued traitorous thoughts of this being a Cadmus cell, stronger perhaps that could...

"Cadmus is gone," Conner whimpered, cutting his runaway emotional outbursts before biting his lip to steel his resolve. He was not that kid anymore. He wasn't feverish or seeing green and this cold belonged to the metal that composed it and not from how ill Conner was feeling. He had to investigate more, locate more clues of what and where he had been taken.

And he had to just remember what the doctor told him to do on the couch during his sessions. If he was having an anxiety attack, distract, distract and distract before the attack claimed him completely while remembering to breathe.

"Remember to breathe, Conner."

Conner concentrated his super hearing and searched for the comforting sounds of civilisation. He expected to hear the words and noises of people living their lives, cars going about on the roads, some peacefully with safety in mind while police cars or emergency vehicles that Conner greatly respected going out to help people. Hell, the animals and birds calling out their noises, sounds belonging to nature that competed with the artificial noises created by industry.

In other words, the validation that he wasn't back in that underground laboratory, where none of those sounds existed there.

His heart picked up the pace once again at the complete silence, his breathing followed suit becoming ragged and irregular as he started to hyperventilate. He accidently, despite the fear of doing so, tore through a restraint and clutched his heaving chest pushing back the heart that was attempting a jailbreak. Conner sat up, snapping out an intravenous tube from his wrist, a liquid that caused him to feel dizzy spluttered out that he remembered so well yet it wasn't quite the same.

"Cadmus knows how to manufacture liquid kryptonite, but they can't make stuff that doesn't hurt you," Conner babbled, tearing another restraint as the panic continued to settle in. "They are gone! Cadmus was destroyed by the Justice League…" His hands covered his useless ears and cautiously he turned his head to the unusual fluid on his arm. He touched his nose to it then withdrew expecting almost to be burned. "Lex told me. He promised me…"

In one last ditch effort for control, he grasped at any method of confirming that this wasn't Cadmus and cautiously utilised his x-ray vision staring through the walls to his left side.

Where Conner promptly lost all sense of composure and snapped. His eyes had to be wrong! There was nothing outside! All he had seen was planet Earth! His claustrophobia was playing tricks on his mind.

"Yeah, that has to be it," Conner said loudly, flailing enough to break through the leg braces, "I must be… no I _am_ delirious from fighting Doomsday. This cannot be Cadmus. Cadmus is gone," the teenager continued mumbling as even his voice started to leave him, "Cadmus is dead… yes that's right and no… I am not in _outer space!_"

Helpfully Cadmus knowledge donated by the Genomorphs, for once, aided him and explicitly explained that nothing was on the moon. International treaties going back to the first contact with alien societies forbade the use of the celestial body for any application. It belonged to nobody hence no single nation could even land on the moon these days. There wasn't anything. This was some kind of hoax and…

In continued desperation, Conner looked through the right hand side metal wall. What he found was powerful enough to affect him that it took five sets of ten rapid heartbeats to accept what he was seeing but that was when, the moment the proverbial shit truly hit the fan.

It was a mortuary! This was a place for the dead to be cut up and examined on their final journey to whatever funeral rites they wanted. It was impossible to mistaken it for anything else! He counted five lifeless and mercifully empty mortuary slabs and trays were in the sterile environment made of polished metal that sat medical instruments such as scalpels and tweezers. The floor was impossibly shiny, hygienic enough to send a sick feeling from his stomach to his throat and everything just seemed to remind him of…

Conner lashed out like a wounded animal. His tactile telekinesis upon his fingertips, grasping the shallow circular roof, contorted everything in reach. Glass bulbs shattered like heavy rain drops, groaning metal walls began to warp and on both walls producing holes shaped like corkscrews. They were jagged like dragon's teeth, cruel in appearance and showed the strain the chamber had been put under by the psychically innate teenager.

The relief of his cell's vulnerability helped him make the following conclusions, if not completely manage to cool the phobias and terrors life had inflicted upon Conner Luthor. Still, so much was impossible to ignore, ancient slumbering monsters created from his harsh beginnings continued to groan out in anticipation of awakening.

This was someone's laboratory. The teenager associated laboratories with bad places, where nightmares were born and his claustrophobia had a new ally in his utter dread of being anywhere near labs. An alarm had gone off, echoing a distant recall of his independence day and red lights had powered up displaying the full space of the cage, a tiny circular cell with torn to pieces restraints and along the roof also running beneath him hundreds of tiny electrical lamps bulbs had exploded. On the side that was supposed to be space, the atmosphere was being sucked out like in the science fiction movies when hull breaches in spaceships happened.

"Am I really in space?" Conner asked. He wasn't afraid of any air leaks. In theory, if Superman could behave like a space shuttle on steroids, so could he. His lung capacity had been measured to tell him the teenager was possibly capable of holding his breath for hours with no effort. "But who could afford to build and hide a base in space?"

Again, that traitorous voice exclaimed, Cadmus was perfectly happy and funded enough to arrange the construction of a moon base to hide all its dirty genetic experiments. He had been unconscious for god knows how many hours. Superman was pretty beaten up last Conner could remember any part of the titanic brawl in the city centre of Metropolis. It wasn't out of the realm of possibility that they got to their former test subject the one time he was vulnerable and out in the open for easy extraction.

Just what was going on? He wanted answers, no needed them like life depended on it. Who were his captors? What did they want and why? This isolation after his traumatic ordeal didn't have Lex Luthor stamped on it, nor was it his style to leave important acquisitions to others to mediate. The man had promised to always be there for him when he awoke if the teen was injured or anything like a hospital that weren't his favourite places in the world to hang out in. Or Mercy, his sister, or perhaps more likely his aunt figure, at least would be sitting patiently while taking calls and making appointments as she waited. Lex treated his investments with care and Conner was under no illusions of being less than something Lex Luthor kept in reserve.

Besides, with his schedule Lex would have awoken him on his own terms to feed his son that steak before his busy work schedule got in the way. Mercy would have arranged that special drug they had made using synthetic blue kryptonite that let him absorb the relaxant if they were going to put him in a chamber like this…

And the alarm wouldn't have gone off if he were a patient…

Uncertainty collapsed his reasoning and that dastardly claustrophobia ruled supreme once again. His torso was clammy now, sticking to the metallic walls of his prison cell with sweat. The mystery light bulbs managed to get identified as something similar Lex had developed to speed up the absorption of solar radiation in his body much like the technology Cadmus had employed, but at a lesser efficiency.

That still reminded him of Cadmus, his metaphorical coven of devils that caused all the problems Conner Luthor would spend his life working through. He had to get out of here. Did he risk space? Was this really the _moon_ or had he…

His x-ray vision took a full panoramic view of the chamber searching for answers. There was some state of the art technology in those walls and most of it unworldly. By reaching upwards, Conner identified a honeycomb of maintenance tunnels or what seemed to be them, storage areas and places that defied description. Each contributing piece of evidence of underground dwellings continued to send bolts of fear into his soul, tearing past what little was of his self-restraint.

The teen's eyes, prowling the rock like body of his underground cell for an escape caught sight of skeletons, living people charging to his position. With each newly discovered potential adversary, the likelihood of escaping from this place from there was increasingly unfavourable to the frightened man. If these men were really from Cadmus… The coincidences or anything that bore any offshoot to those sadist Frankenstein's monster makers the power they had over him in while stuck in captivity made his hands shake.

Conner balled his fists to control his visible fear but nothing could be done for the mental trauma he associated with Cadmus. In those memories dwelled something more powerful than any green rock or any insane space monsters. Something like a broken child cried out for him to get away from anyone that would lock them away in a small cramped space and leave them to wake up in there was bad news. The physical manifestation of his terror spread to his torso, making him seem like a man taking a dip in a frozen sea. The urge to crawl up into a ball and beg for mercy when those people that his eyes wouldn't stop staring at as they descended what appeared to be a lift shaft and those tunnels arrived, was stomped by the ever human quality known as 'fight or flight'. This instinct, ingrained in all humans, made him take the rather inhuman choice to take the chance with space.

It even could be a cruel fake, a lab rat test that they could be performing. While not sure entirely, Conner was almost certain the monsters of Cadmus had made the kryptonite exposed teenager do said tests, but the psychiatrist was positive most if not all of those days had been repressed. A fit from his overactive imagination from kryptonite poisoning or not, Conner Luthor had to cling to something… to find a reason to flee to and escape. Cadmus be damned! What could Conner Luthor use to settle this? What could that be though?

"Hurry up," Conner muttered to himself, mutinously despising his state of mind. That irrational hatred of hating his natural fear was infuriating to say the least. Why was it so hard to just blast his way through the wall and into open space? "Maybe because you haven't been into space before, Conner," he grumbled, biting his invulnerable palm with his teeth ineffectively restraining his ever shaking grasp.

Then, in the corner of his eye, where he had not been looking instead staring at the coldness of space that offered one method of escaping capture, people were approaching his room. Beyond the range of the mortuary, sat some kind of waiting room and out from that door, rapidly approaching, were five skeletons and one solid mass that defied x-rays and were only detectable because of the gigantic dent they made in the steel door leaving a hand print.

"They have a meta-human here," Conner whimpered, not liking anything that couldn't be seen with x-rays, "They could be more clones of Superman made from me only stronger, faster…" That made up his mind for him. He was in no shape to fight another Doomsday wannabe. It was cold in space with an airless vacuum to welcome him, but theory was going to be put into practice. He had to flee from this place.

Oh, and Conner was pretty sure he was going to be the least clothed man in space ever, as well.

Conner poked a finger through one of the holes in the damaged wall. He spread out his tactile telekinesis so to yank the jagged hole out deeper, his heat vision was making an irregular circle and his super strength was making the compromised steel bulkhead out to be no better than tissue paper. But, it worked. His overkill panicking mash up of the prison wall caved it through in moments, and the teenager let the suction of the room riding what was left of the obliterated wall, rock and all pull him out into the vacuum of space.

"_Oh,"_ Conner thought stupidly, speechless that the teenager was in fact in space… Or the best damn simulator ever built by man that had no ending that his x-ray or telescopic vision could elaborate on. For his first time in space, Conner's terror took a back seat to nothing.

Well, how were you meant to describe seeing your home planet for the first time from outer space? The beautiful blue sapphire of the Milky Way filled with twinkling stars that cradled the race of men while protecting it from the harshness of space. Conner, Kryptonian hybrid, a super man made to order, forgot his last glimpses of life on Earth had been consumed by a fight to the death or that the teen had just escaped an unknown prison cell manned by possibly the very evil people that spawned him. Conner Luthor's mind was filled instead with the infinite beauty of the cosmos and the planet Earth that rested in its protective grip.

Then Conner remembered he was an escapee from a jail on the moon, and looked down on the lunar surface for clues for anyone that might be in pursuit.

The moon in space was not exactly the most impressive thing Conner had ever seen. From the ground at night, the shine of the sun's rays gleaming off the grey lunar dust floor made it seem radiant, almost god like. Conner had remembered spending all night looking and admiring with unspeakable awe, as he embraced the cool breeze from his hospital window on his first night of freedom, two luxuries of nature denied to him in his underground cell.

Now, the moon seemed boring. It was just a grey ball of dust that fell well under the expectations of the teenager that had treated it as a treasure to savour from the ground. Just a mere rock, orbiting a diamond like world filled with life. It was almost beautified by the background of green and especially blue that was the planet.

But, there didn't seem to be any sign of pursuit or chase, and nothing on the surface at all that looked like a structure or docking pad or anything else off the top of his short black haired head could think about that a secret space station might need to survive. Perhaps he was home free, at last? Conner, if he could would have exhaled in relief.

"_Now what do I do now?"_ Conner had few options, each as unappealing as the next. The first was to locate a space station in orbit and borrow a phone to call Lex to send his shuttle to pick him up. But that would cause a potential international incident if he chose wrong. Not everybody, like Russia, would welcome a westerner wandering in to use their facilities. Or he could find the rough location of America and make his own descent. Only problem with that was Conner had no idea how much time had passed since Doomsday, and the USA might not take kindly to an unidentified object blasting through the atmosphere. They might, you know, mistake it for a missile and think someone finally started a nuclear war.

And he was almost naked too, and those shorts he was wearing probably couldn't endure re-entry… and while culturally naïve at times due to ignorance, the teenager knew enough about cultural norms (not that he cared really) that flashing his anatomy at television cameras that would come running from the hubbub could embarrass Lex… He did not want to humiliate his father figure.

Then, without warning, the lunar surface beneath him began to ripple and contort like space and time were collapsing all around him. This shimmer that warped the crater ridden grey surface of the moon revealed an enormous artificial structure. It was shaped like a donut with a glittering yellow energy emitting tower on the top dead centre. Around the circular tube shaped oddly enough like a drill like tower, were numerous corkscrew like shaped tunnels that fed into the outer tube and again descending via elevators into the crust that stayed together with the donut outer domes with narrow glass corridors and taut metal wires that could only be seen by the light from the top. It was shimmering, a luminescence shade of silver that seemed almost alive like the very shadow of the ocean had been captured and imposed on its surface.

But, there was something certainly alien about it all. No human had invented camouflage like that yet. No army used it or any private company that would waste the money to build the base in the first place. Hell, there wasn't much about this installation that didn't contravene international law enough for it to remove its stealth capabilities while blatantly waving its existence to the world, just to rally capture teams from Cadmus, a group that breathed secrecy even after the government 'decommissioned' them (yeah, he wasn't an authorised experiment).

That brought some closure to the young hybrid. Whoever this was, it wasn't Cadmus that had held him prisoner. Well, he thought the owners of the invisible space station were holding him… Well, his best deductive conclusion suggested all that. That was a bit of a blur and an assumption based on the available facts.

Then, a hatch opened on the top of the tower and flying out at high speed was something, or someone, that felt hostile to the teenager. Or translation, after all the shit he had gone through, Conner Luthor was not taking any chances to take a moment to see what was coming at him.

Conner turned tail and ran in the direction of the nearest atmosphere, his wariness… okay, his moment of wisdom that picking a fight on the moon when his combined flying hours were less than the Wright plane's first flight was a very bad idea. Most of his brawling with Doomsday had been on the ground and flying had been used mostly to escape the holes the beast made with him as a battering ram and to evade the monster not that it helped much.

The teenager was faster in space and the further out of the moon's shadow he went the nearly naked teenager could almost touch the shock of power frying his solar charged cells. The naked, untainted rays of the sun were most potent here, ridding him of most if not all the nervousness trailing from his time in the cell. His soul felt cleansed and free, his destination was not too far ahead and according to his telescopic sight there was a small bulky looking space station with people inside…

That was when the powerful hand grabbed his shoulder and reminded Conner that the teen had been running away from the cloaked moon base… With the meta-human tracking him down… The rush like a drug that had passed through him via the powerful rays of the unimpeded sunlight ceased like a static shock going through him from the physical contact.

His fear acted and lashed out with his elbow. In space, with no gravity, the strength had been more than he had planned. It hit pay dirt, striking a rib and taking the air out of his enemy's lungs. Conner turned while still in motion, slapping the impossibly firm grip off his shoulder and jabbed where the teenager expected the face was according to the body blow to stop at the very last second.

Looming with a disarming, grin that was really awkward (not surprising considering the fright he had given Conner); Superman nursed his injured pride by rubbing his chest where his infamous S shield was crinkled.

As the teen withdrew his fist, Conner forgot what intelligent life was meant to be. This was Superman! He was staring at the man whose genetics created him. And this time, no monster from space was stopping him from gaping like a blunt toddler.

The man seemed utterly perfect, the real American hero in his red and blue spandex uniform. His world famous S shield stood out as his symbol to justice, honour and the amazing…ness of Superman, man of steel and wearer of cape that no other man could pull off without looking like an escaped asylum patient. Conner just froze like a statue, his fantasies (clean ones) of how this first contact occurred hadn't predicted meeting properly over a jail break. The man even had the perfect quiff in that impossibly impeccable black hair compared to his sensible, short black cut.

"_Maybe it's on my mum's side where I got the hair,"_ Conner thought, blatantly scanning the entire form of the Man of Steel. The Kryptonian had biceps that could probably move asteroids off their trajectories or smash their way through entire armadas on their own. Conner continued to examine, musing on idle thoughts of if this would be him someday.

He made the photographs in the Daily Planet look faked. His presence was impossibly almost omnipotent, like he was listening to the entire world in every moment like the theorists, as Cadmus predicted, as well as Lex on the stories he reluctantly told of their engagements, so unruffled as if every day had him fighting monsters to the death.

Conner stopped gazing the second he realised Superman had just floated there, as if letting the teen show he meant no threat while the Man of Steel did his own examination. There had been confirmed reports Superman's telescopic vision could be implemented like a microscope and maybe, just maybe, the blue suited caped hero was learning the truth.

Superman made a gesture and pointed to the rough coordinates of the moon base. At first, Conner shook his head violently. He had no desire to return to where he had been locked up in that small chamber with all those solar lamps… And…

"_Wait,"_ Conner said with his eyes widening and his mouth gaping. Superman looked alarmed, his eyes gave it away briefly before that stern but assuring expression repeated his pointing. _"Did I just fucking escape from the Justice League headquarters?"_ Conner shook his head internally. _"No way am I that unlucky,"_ he added thoughtfully, _"I already used up all my bad karma battling Doomsday…"_

That was when karma decided his time as its bitch was not quite over yet. Soaring towards them with engines powerful enough to cause distortions, since in space you couldn't hear anything, was a spacecraft. It was immediately apparent that Conner had just indeed escaped from the Justice League of America's secret main headquarters, a location that Lex had tirelessly searched for on earth.

The celebrated Javelin type aircraft, constructed with the aid of Wayne Enterprises was said to be the modern pinnacle of adaptable aircraft. Sleek with a secret resin coating allowing it to come and go through the atmosphere at the pilot's whim and a hull capable of diving down deep into the ocean's depths the Javelin was a symbol of the JLA. It was an honour that no other nation could claim to possess, a symbol of hope for humanity when its powerful twin engines roared its battle cry into the battlefield. Built into two sections, one cone shaped module housing the cockpit and the other like the body of a manta ray the dirty green hulled vessel had done some miracles in its time (well what the press and Lex's archive footage had recorded).

"_Great…"_ Conner thought, watching the craft swirl around him like a stalking shark. His telescopic vision hated small moving targets but he was able to see inside it was bristling with weaponry and in its cockpit through the glare created when it touched the sun the one man nobody wanted to mess with was piloting. _"It had to be the Batman that came out to meet me in a heavily armoured spacecraft."_

His eyes caught a green flash before a body stopped in front of him. The man was black, bald with a trimmed short beard and moustache and wore the iconic green and black uniform of the Green Lantern Corps. He was surrounded by a green energy field and, man, did this man not look happy to see him.

It seemed his day was getting worse by the moment. Conner now had to contend with a galactic defender as well. Superman had flown directly to his side now and pointed towards the base. The power ring user seemed to take that as a signal to flank him on the other.

Conner felt like a prisoner going down death row with all the powerful and beloved heroes leading him back to the base. He had no intention to escape now. Instead, Conner had to figure out a way to explain why he had trashed part of their clubhouse without the irate appearing Green Lantern smashing him around with his power ring.

Hero or not, Conner was not taking his chances. Superman seemed serene about all this; that helped cool the anxiety that had drifted out of him after escaping that cramped space. Conner was rational now, well, enough if a little underdressed for a meeting with a group of earth's mightiest superheroes. Lex had dubbed Superman the world's biggest Boy Scout and his son was betting on that to be true. Again, the unnatural green glowing eyes of the Green Lantern were glaring at him, making the teen float closer to the unaffected Superman who kept his gaze straight ahead at the opening docking port where the spacecraft had flown in.

Scouting ahead with his telescopic vision, people were waiting inside a hanger behind a barrier of some kind that distorted their features while the area was exposed to space. Soon the interrogation would begin.

"_Where is Lex when you need him?"_ the super powered teenager grumbled thoughtfully, looking at both his father and the Green Lantern that was eyeing up a dust cloud that was probably where he had escaped from. _"I hope they don't bill me for that."_

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A/N Well there ya go people. After a bumpy start for our intrepid hero and his subsequently awesome first impression he gave to the Justice League we now get to the part everyone has been waiting on. Thanks to _hockeygoalie1992 _for the beta work. Go see him, he rules!


	5. Chapter 5 Revelations And Interrogations

"Young Justice New World Chronicles"

"The Lost Son"

By Heliosion

Chapter 5: Revelations And Interrogations

Disclaimer: I obviously don't own the DC universe or its affiliates for if I did I wouldn't have grown men flying around with their underwear on the outside of their spandex pants. Or make a superhero whose special power is driving a taxi.

Oh yeah this is based in an original multiverse world. In this case Earth X for this is a fanfiction and I haven't had the opportunity to read every single comic produced by DC hence continuity will suffer so I will create my own in the spirit of Young Justice.

**Constructive reviews only people**

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In every person's life there are moments that define them as people. These were the times life threw obstacles for them as people to overcome and were remembered as life lessons deep in the human heart. From the day they were born to their first words, to the day they learned to walk on their own two feet for the first time. It continued as they grew up into adolescence, attending school and making their first friends, until the teenaged days when hormones brought girls (or boys) and their first dates. This stretched beyond their choice of colleges, careers and the first steps into life, when eventually they would give birth to their own children to repeat the cycle. A man (or woman) was forged by these incidents until the day they died. Each tiny milestone that made up the lifetime of that individual soul was earth shattering to that particular individual.

Well aware of just how short his existence had been, Conner was fairly sure that karma was giving him a leg up and cramming all his special moments together. First Doomsday, his debut battle, of course, that paid up the favour owed to Lex that had been hanging over him since his little walk around America. Next was fighting with Superman by his side, and then his first near death experience. Then, of course, there was waking up in the headquarters of the famous Justice League of America in a tight dark room and then proceeding in _trashing_ part of it in a fit of claustrophobia.

But, after all those moments in his life, including flying in space in just his boxer shorts (flashing three _feminist_ Amazonians standing behind a particle barrier next to one of the exits) and being escorted back the Justice League hanger by three living legendary heroes. One, the symbol of American society, Superman, another, a ring bearing intergalactic policeman known as the Green Lantern and the powerless, but symbolically terrifying, Batman, fashioned to appear like one of the night's most terrifying fiends, Conner was positive the following conversation once they reached a source of breathable air was going to top it all off.

Not that they needed something to break the ice, with how underdressed he was or anything… He couldn't manage to be more informal if he tried. Man, what Conner would do for a pair of pants or, better yet, a time machine so he could make for a better first impression.

The atmosphere was tense, to say the least, when Conner escorted by his guard flew into the expansive hanger. Both of his guards had moved with military precision, with one eye watching their flight path and the other eyeballing their guest. The heir to the Superman legacy was so caught up in the pressure of his situation that his eyes drifted just to discover something to take his mind off. Like, for example, the unusual substance staining his wrist where the I.V. (now healed, of course; thank you solar radiation) had been placed a sort of yellow, maybe gold, syrup that was mixed with what looked like dried blood. Conner wondered just what the hell they had been using on him.

He was more concerned why precisely it didn't have much effect on him…

The main hangar itself was arranged into a conveyer system that seemed to feed in Javelins from the floor below with an elevator system. The control room dominated the wall, facing the carnivorous metallic hanger door that had notches looking like a monster's maw. But otherwise it had been carved out of the moon rock itself, using powerful florescent lights to illuminate what was otherwise a naturally darkened space. The teenager landed with cold feet in the centre of a circular docking pad, with two red circles designated for vertical landing of the Javelin craft that Batman took the liberty of landing his chariot. It also had the nifty ability to rotate anything that sat on it, as the Batman demonstrated by using the clockwise turning discs to spin the craft around to threateningly aim its particle cannons at the visitor. Superman seemed to almost frown at this action while the ring bearer started glaring, or something like that (his glowing green eyes made it hard to guess if he was staring or just dazed), at Conner, sending shivers down his spine.

They were made to wait as the door out to space was sealed, first by some kind of barrier that made a buzzing sound as it was activated. Then, they pumped in the atmosphere, creating a roaring sound as breathable air was rushed in from vents that opened from above them. Once that was finished, Conner let out a sigh that he had been owing himself since he discovered what the hell he just blew up a piece of and surrendered by slouching submissively to his captors.

He had no fight left in him anymore. There was no point. This was where the fucking Justice League hung out when not occupying their famous orbital platform or Metro tower base in Metropolis… Besides, apart from the whole being scared out of his mind and flanked by angry heroes, no doubt upset the property values of their hideout, had plummeted Conner had a sliver of excitement about walking through the halls of their famous league.

The three Amazon women never stopped staring at him either, that was unnerving. He knew who they were, of course. The oldest one with the black hair and the magical lasso was Wonder Woman, her sister Troia, well known for her teen years as the original Wonder Girl, when she had been utterly boy crazy in the sparkly sexy black outfit of hers, and the new Wonder Girl who had a similar rope to Wonder Woman which instead of compelling you to tell the truth electrocuted you. Together, they were symbols of a warrior culture that had proven the respect garnered by their battles defending humanity. Conner seriously hoped that the fuzzy energy field they still stood behind was just to keep them from suffocating. Pissing off feminists with super strength and magical powers was not on his to do list today.

They waited in silence, even with the atmosphere restored to the area and the docking bay was properly sealed with the monstrous mouth of the hanger door was closed. Everyone just stayed there still and as uncomfortable as statues until the legendary figure, Batman, descended from his chariot when life returned to the area.

"Computer," Batman drawled with his cowl fluttering behind him. He looked utterly inhuman, gathering a presence that made Conner feel mortal, weak… impotent to this legendary figure that with no powers of his own had done more than most of the greatest meta-humans in the world five times over. His pointy eared mask was enough to make the teenager want to step back. "Deactivate the containment field, authorisation Batman gamma thirteen omega four."

"Acknowledged," a computer voice replied. Conner reached out with his super hearing for the speaker, but located nothing except for a sound that came from everywhere at once. The safety field vanished and the trio of Amazonians stepped forward into the space completing an encirclement that was around the super teen.

Conner gulped audibly. His face had to be betraying his apprehension from his seemingly inability to escape. Sure, he had a million plans that could stomp normal people. But, as he kept reminding himself, this was the Justice League! Only one of them had no super abilities, but Lex had warned him about the ring of kryptonite Batman kept on him, donated by the Man of Steel himself, as a measure in case Superman was ever brainwashed or had his body or powers taken over by a hostile force. It would also be an ugly battle, to say the least, if it came to blows inside a moon base filled with few people capable of surviving without oxygen. Conner did not want that on his conscience, nor did he feel he was capable of withstanding the weight that choice would put on his shoulders.

"I'm sorry about the damage," Conner apologised; amazed the words came from him first through all the nerves. Cadmus had implemented a code of right and wrong to handle these sorts of situations, kind of obsolete considering their last decision to turn him into a miniature nuclear bomb that had a shelf life. His apology made him feel embarrassed at admitting that he really screwed up. Who would think claustrophobia would damage a moon base…

Damn, no matter how many times he said it, _moon base_ just sounded like they were lying to him.

"It wasn't serious," Superman said to him, "We should have had a person waiting for you when you woke up um…"

"Conner," Conner supplied, figuring he would omit the surname for now. No need to get Superman blowing up half of Metropolis looking for answers from his old arch nemesis. The pair hadn't sparred to his knowledge since he had been taken in by the businessman. Apparently, having his own super boy took the fun out of waging war with his old blue and red costumed foe.

Or so he hoped… Nah, it wasn't his biggest concern at this time.

"Can you tell us a bit about yourself? Where you come from?" Green Lantern asked. "Can you tell us more about how exactly you well came to be, Conner?"

Conner deliberated his words carefully, some people very intrusive questions. One wrong word or phrase might start a fight, a scenario that guaranteed he would get an ass kicking. Sure, he was a heavyweight, but so were the two guys flanking him, as well as the three women standing at him. Wonder Woman seemed the most aggrieved of the trio. She seemed really angry actually, eyeing Superman like she had caught him doing something undesirably evil like kicking a yapping puppy across the equator. The youngest, a girl about his physical age seemed curious if a bit intrusive from just how hard she was staring at him (while he was almost naked no less) while the last one, the middle of the bunch, Troia, a virtual clone of her older sister, only a snappier dresser in his personal opinion, had a hint of a blush in her cheeks. She appeared concerned, dare he say it, motherly about the whole thing.

That was something to take proper notice of. What she did next was equally baffling and made him reach out to trust her. Later on, he would wonder if he was sensing the motherly intent that she would master to an art form, a person that would always have his back.

"How about we take him to the medical bay before we interrogate Conner," Troia suggested, stepping forward until she was almost touching him nose to nose. Those gorgeous eyes seemed to search his own until she smiled honestly, awkwardly, but honestly and took his hand. It seemed so small for the power he had seen her use on television, but Conner accepted her olive branch and climbed onto the tree to safety from the sharks known as Green Lantern and Batman waiting to devour him.

"Maybe get him some pants, too," Wonder Girl suggested playfully. Having trouble with the term modesty even now, Conner did what was meant to be the right response and covered up his shorts with his free hand.

"I will have J'onn meet us with some fresh clothes," Superman said, touching his inner ear with his finger. Conner figured that was where their communicators were hidden. His was more durable but was destroyed in the Doomsday debacle. "J'onn we need you to get our guest some clothes when we arrive in the infirmary."

"He isn't getting interrogated in a cell?" Green Lantern asked questionably.

"He saved Superman's life," Batman stated in a tone that made the Green Lantern seem like the caped crusader thought he was stupid for asking. "We owe him that courtesy at least."

"But he damaged the Luna Watchtower," Green Lantern argued, "Are we at least going to shackle him? The kid has powers that don't belong to Superman! For all we know, he planned this."

"He faked a broken eye socket, five cracked ribs, a broken jaw and a concussion?" Batman said with more condescending language that even his own teammates were used to if the furrow on Wonder Woman's brow was anything to go by. "I would hate to see this boy if he was a bad actor."

"But we have no idea where this kid came from or for that matter what hellhole Doomsday appeared from either. Both of them are unknown variables and other people have played us for fools with schemes like these. We cannot risk the secrecy of this base like that. We need to hold him down properly and, for that matter, we should launch Javelins to search the area and do a full sweep of the surface for anything unusual."

"It has already been organised," Batman stated, his eyes seem to narrow making his bat like costume even more menacing, "If you weren't still…"

"Let's all calm down," Superman said. His inclusion in the burgeoning argument stopped it in its track. It was easy to see why the world saw this man, his father, as their champion, the greatest champion of earth. "We can ask all the questions we want to and get everything else organised once we are in the infirmary."

Did the Man of Steel know that Conner was his 'child'? Conner was fairly sure that they had to have done some tests while he was out cold. They had placed him in that room, that strange cage that had those lamps…

Conner flinched at his realisation and his mistake. That had been something to help him recover. It _was_ some sort of solar chamber that had been used to speed up his recovery and realised they had been treating him. The wounds listed by the Batman were serious even for an invulnerable (allegedly) teenager. No doubt other internal injuries had been endured as well but Lex had explained that his tissues and organs healed faster than anything else under intense solar radiation.

"We should at least blindfold him so he doesn't get a full view of the base. The kid has proven to have the same powers as Superman and has Kryptonian DNA so he must have x-ray vision," Green Lantern continued to argue, proving Conner's assumption about his race anyway. They knew what he was and to some like this former soldier would see that as something dangerous. Conner recognised the green costumed wearing man's stiff ramrod spine as something a man in the military would have. Lex had numerous ex-special forces as guards and they stood the same way. The man needed to be pacified and in Conner's understanding of humanity being submissive yet compromising would help this along. There was enough awkwardness to get through once his surname was revealed.

"Let the Green Lantern do what he wants," Conner offered, holding his hands out. The Green Lantern had stepped back at the gesture and everyone but the Batman looked ready to object. "If it makes some of you feel, better I don't mind. I do have x-ray vision… among other things," Conner had said, mumbling the last part. His tactile telekinesis was not native to either one of his parents. The owner of the meta-gene, well if it had simply been turned on or transplanted was something lost in the breakout.

"I don't like it," Superman argued, "But if it gets us all moving and Conner has agreed to it, then I think we should do it."

The Lantern used his power ring to manufacture green glowing shackles and a simple blindfold that wrapped around his eyes. The hard light projection (his best guess) was capable of neutralising his eyesight and the shackles held firm and bound his wrists together. Someone grasped his shoulder and led him on his journey.

While unable to see what was going on his hearing was another story. Wonder Woman and her associates were arguing in the rear of the odd group. He felt it rude to listen since Troia had shown her support and instead listened to everything else. This place was mobbed with people once he learned to look for noises that weren't expected. He suspected the chamber he woke up in was soundproofed as it was now going out as clear as a bell. And there were some intriguing noises too. Apart from the heartbeats of his stoic wardens, especially the Batman, who had to be the owner of the one that was not racing in his immediate vicinity (one of the Amazons was actually running on adrenaline, but it was impossible to tell which one) he heard the sound of a horse and someone watching a porn movie or engaging in sexual relations and one of them, the woman, had a thing for dirty talk. Teenagers were here too, easy to hear with their choice of topics down below on another level amongst explosions and gun fire of all things. His journey used a short elevator ride but overall Conner found he had a feel for this place, enough to resist his claustrophobia induced by the blindfold and restraints. He had no desire to blow up something else in the Luna Watchtower as the Green Lantern had let slip. Conner had the impression the man was usually professional from their argument and most likely his Kryptonian DNA had shook him up as well as the number of suspicious circumstances.

Really, Conner thought too much had been leaked out. The Justice League Lex Luthor told him about was this irritating, but effective, group of heroes that put out the endless fires and crisis that afflicted the planet on a daily basis. This entire day had to have really rattled them.

The elevator doors opened on the last part of his journey and out into a cold floor. It was quiet here, like back in the place he had woken up and the sounds around him were muffled, aggravating his phobias. He was gently nudged like a man knowing he was about to face a firing squad.

"You are safe here," Superman assured him with another little nudge that would have broken a normal person's shoulder. "John, remove the restraints now. We can use the emergency force field generator to reduce his ability to see beyond the walls. But you are not helping things John."

"Fine, then," Green Lantern relented, removing his conjured objects made of green hard light energy.

Conner's x-ray vision searched the corridor with the views of space that he had just been in, carefully tracking his path to the infirmary. Inside, a skeleton was moving around, holding a large handheld computer if he was seeing the circuitry right.

"We are almost there," Superman stated with his benevolent smile. The Wonder Woman was following his lead while the younger girls were different, maybe unable to hide their emotions as well as the veteran pair. The Batman had a regular beat, meaning he was very healthy or unaffected by the chain of events, a man who took it as they come and rolled with the punches. In his opinion those were the ones to watch out for.

"Computer," said John Stewart tersely, his hand was pressed up against an open panel with a key lock, the key of which was some sort of biometric scanner. Again, thanks to Cadmus, he was knowledgeable about such hardware. "Activate the emergency force field in this section, authorisation Lantern 2459# Green."

"Voice authorisation, thumb print recognised and accepted."

Conner watched out of the window as a beautiful beam of energy fired from a crater into the sky that seemed to explode like a fire work and shower the area around them in a shimmering aurora of colours until it disappeared into the miasma of black that was space.

"Are you happy now?" Batman asked lowly, his voice a gruff that probably made most criminals defecate themselves when they were caught in Gotham at night committing a crime, "It will now be impossible for his x-ray vision to penetrate the ECF system, or do you want to stand guard outside the Watchtower to make sure he hasn't hidden any friends that all of our Javelins couldn't locate?"

"They've finished their search already?" Green Lantern asked patiently ignoring the sarcasm.

"J'onn just told me they just now finished and he is waiting for us now in the infirmary."

"No, he's not," Conner corrected, "I looked inside the room and there was only one person inside."

"You see! He has been looking inside the base," Green Lantern declared with his ring finger pointed at Conner, who stepped back. Wonder Woman stepped forward, taking charge of the heated situation and shielded him with her own body. The Wonder Girl had one hand on her lasso and Troia just kept shooting Conner furtive looks, as if she wasn't sure what she was seeing. Only once had their eyes met and the adrenaline racing through her system was insane did it tell him that Green Lantern was under a load of stress that had made him act out of character.

"It's J'onn, he'll be there," Batman said vaguely, "But, I think you really need to get some rest John," Batman suggested calmly to his dark skinned ally, who was freaking out Conner. This man was acting out of character. His friends were treating it like that with nothing that made noises in their bodies giving away any sign that this was something they were used to. High respiration and continued rumbles of a throbbing heartbeat. They were tense and possibly due to explode. Doomsday had to have rattled them. It had rattled him both figuratively and literally. "Go to bed. We can take it from here."

The man with the green ring lowered his infinitely powerful weapon and shook his head. Conner caught the shine of sweat, the weariness in his shoulders and a million other details that his impressive formidable nature had carefully concealed from the teenager. It was no wonder, really. According to the information he had seen on the jet to Metropolis, he had been amongst the members to first engage and be defeated by Doomsday. Something had to give watching half of the league be turned into crash dummies.

"I am going to bed, but keep the field up," Green Lantern asked wearily as if washing his hands of this sorry mess, "See you later." He sent one last glare at the teenaged superman then left with heavy footsteps back into the lift.

"He's just been stressed out since today was one of our darker days," Wonder Woman said with a fake smile. He had seen them before dealing with customers in the coffee shop that smiled while really they were hiding something. "We haven't suffered such a defeat in years you see, Conner."

There threatened a suspicious silence, but Wonder Girl filled it swiftly, showing great understanding of tact. Something was wrong here. The teenager could feel it in his bones. What were they hiding from him? He was hesitant to progress into the infirmary with the shield keeping him from escaping. Did they know something? Was there data on Cadmus that they found that Lex had not? Or worse, did they see him as a threat that they were playing nice until they figured out a way to contain him?

"Doctor Hoshi is waiting for us inside, Conner," Wonder Girl reminded him that they were standing in a corridor, "We have clothes and food for you while the doctor asks a few questions about your medical history and, if it's possible, the League would like to hear your story."

"Let's not keep her waiting, then," Troia spoke up with a squeak that she covered her mouth from embarrassment. She was actually having hiccups, if her diaphragm was making the correct noises.

"Try holding your breath," Conner suggested to her, kindly remembering what an old woman had told him in one of his old apartments, "Or try drinking a glass of water. I heard that helped with the hiccups."

Troia had a tinge to her cheeks at being caught while Wonder Girl giggled at her friend's predicament. Superman was avidly avoiding being in the vicinity of Diana, whom really seemed to be hiding something. She was the kind of person, in his understanding, to be upfront about everything and concealing something was against her nature.

In search of the truth and happy, his claustrophobia was gone, he strolled towards the door only to set off an alarm.

"Warning unauthorised personnel attempting to access the infirmary," the computer wailed with a noise loud enough for his unprepared super hearing to take offence to. Conner showed didn't hide how sheepish it made him feel and half expected the Lantern to smash through the glass window to catch him performing some kind of nefarious act. Wonder Woman showed a more genuine pleasantry to her fake smile upgrading it from obviously fake to a firm tight lipped grin.

"Computer, this is Woman 3479# Wonder requesting entry for guest. Recognise temporary access from registry of temporary zeta beam allowance profile in infirmary of subject 1 from today. Grant him access to all critical areas as long as he is accompanied by an authorised member of personnel."

"Name and voice sample, please."

"That's your cue, Conner," encouraged Superman to a reluctant Conner whom had hoped to avoid using his surname until now. He still did not want to speak aloud the name handed to him by his father figure, Lex Luthor, for fear of reprisals.

"My name is Conner," Conner stated, looking to the group for guidance, "Is that enough?"

"I see you are still reluctant to give us your surname," Diana said. "Will we ever be told about this?"

"After you hear what I have to say," Conner compromised, "I think it would work against me to say that before we go inside."

"The computer prefers…"

"That's good enough for me," said the trusting Man of Steel over the observing Batman, who showed no adverse reaction to being cut off mid-sentence. Conner was grateful to his biological father for showing faith in him and annoyed his mind had forgotten Batman was still on the prowl and peering through his mask for any clues of the black haired teen's intentions.

The teen was aware, very much so, of how suspicious he seemed after a day that would be marked down in history for strange coincidences. The whole situation itself, they met and defeated an unknown alien from places or planet unidentified at this time (as far as he was aware) smelt awfully fishy as his former colleague at the coffee shop relegated to the back, named Charlie, would say when he caught Conner at times lifting far more than what was normal without realising he was being that way. Super strength was a handicap when it came to behaving like a regular human. He had never had such limitations as normal people did. It made him wonder how the Man of Steel did it. Same went for the trust Superman gave to others. Conner had heard the lives of faceless Americans, millions of them depending on where his travels took him and most if not all had no problem lying, cheating or hurting each other to further their own agenda. If it hadn't been for experience, meeting the people that did honestly care for its fellow man, his faith in humanity would have been irrevocably broken after the travesty of Cadmus.

"Accept identification guest as Conner," Wonder Woman said, "Allow us entry."

"Confirmed entering infirmary guest Conner, Wonder Woman, Superman, Batman, Troia and Wonder Girl." The metal doors opened with the expected hiss and they all stepped inside the modern hospital.

An Asian woman in a lab coat and a certain famous Martian were waiting inside for them. How his x-ray vision missed his arrival was a mystery. Of course, he could have used his intangibility or turned invisible, but even that wouldn't hide his body completely. Even Superman appeared in some manner when the x-rays were repelled by his invulnerable skin.

Like the television news networks caught on camera, the Martian Manhunter was humanoid in shape, green obviously and very much so bald like Lex, making him imagine Lex as green and stifled his urge to laugh. He wore blue spandex pants, some kind of red belt in a cross shape across his chest and a blue cape and pretty much nothing else apart from boots. If it wasn't for the skin tone, he could probably walk into a nightclub and be mistaken for a stripper.

Unlike the green ring user from before, J'onn was well known for his respect and kindness. He was a model example of the peaceful, but almost extinct Martian race that once thrived on Earth's nearest neighbouring planet. He also happened to be a skilled telepath and that rung the alert sirens inside his head.

Was he reading his thoughts at this very moment? Cadmus had done something to create a mental resilience in him when Cadmus tried programming his mind with the Genomorphs but that could mean nothing to a telepath like the Martian who had spent a lifetime mastering it compared to a short lived Genomorph with a five year lifespan.

"Welcome back," the doctor greeted genially. "I am glad you brought him back here, Superman. I need to give him a check-up. If you could, um..." Her hand gesture showed her lack of familiarity to him and with some hesitation, followed her over to an open bed and sat down.

"My name is Conner," Conner said in the hopes of making this easier for her.

"Okay then, Conner," she replied, "I am Doctor Hoshi. Now, you seem to have recovered from your ordeal, but I need to run a check on you," she stated, passing a blue scanner like object that tingled as she passed it through his torso. Amazingly, his skeleton was being shown like a normal x-ray would, but that was impossible… Wasn't it?

"How did you do that?" Conner asked curiously, hiding the cold that continued to linger long after the scanner was turned off. It was a sensation that had been similar to his time in Cadmus exposed to constant low levels of Kryptonite radiation.

"We just used blue kryptonite in the scanner to let us examine what is going on inside. We invented it for Superman and Supergirl, or rather S.T.A.R. labs did. I hope it didn't make you feel too uncomfortable, but it's looking good. You seem to have fully recovered from your ordeal."

"That is great news," Superman agreed, "We owe him for his help with Doomsday and he did point out its final weakness."

That had been by accident but to be praised by his father made him want to blush.

"I just did what my benefactor asked me to do," Conner almost pleaded so the man of steel would stop praising him. "He was wrecking the city and my benefactor needed me to stop him before he destroyed the city."

"Your benefactor?" Batman asked, wanting Conner to elaborate.

"Wait until she is finished examining him," Diana scolded.

Doctor Hoshi continued her examination of her patient. Conner respected her professionalism as she clearly stated each and every test she was doing to him. A blue tipped needle took a blood sample, another scanner utilising power neutralising blue kryptonite monitored his blood pressure and examined his eyes. It was precisely the same as any other check-up a doctor would instigate on her patient until she stopped to observe the strange liquid on his arm.

"I see you didn't reject the blood transfusion I gave you from samples we have in storage. Your mother's blood appears to have not rejected you when combined with the diluted gold kryptonite I used to let the needle penetrate your skin. I did plan to…"

"You know my mother?" Conner said, interrupting in a near whisper. Everyone in the roof winced, even the Batman and the Martian Manhunter at the declaration. "You know who she is, Doctor Hoshi?" he demanded standing up so fast his resting hand on the metal bed frame bent from the sudden application of force. "Who is she? I need to know."

"Calm down, Conner," Superman said placating the teenager, "There is no need to get overexcited about this. We first need to ask some questions about..."

"I always knew who my father was," Conner shot back softly, "But never my mother. The lab reports never told me who she was and you all know? L… My benefactor," he sighed inwardly at the near slip, "Could never find out anything about her. There was no mention of her on any official registries and he looked everywhere." His super hearing reached out to find anyone trying to act guilty until he put the circumstances together. There was no reason for Wonder Girl or Troia to be here. He understood the Lantern, Batman and Superman. They had specific roles to play. But did they need Wonder Woman? He had assumed paranoia, but now with the carrot on the stick dangled in front of him, certain things weren't adding up. He had an eidetic memory but probably what made him special were his deductive abilities. He could put things together rather quickly, scarily so that had aided him in his time strolling around America trying to integrate himself with humanity. It was part of his personality cultivated by Cadmus, the part that didn't belong to human culture, human morality or its hang-ups and allowed him to see for things others couldn't or wouldn't want to see weren't right about things.

Because, come on, he had outright proof he was a half Kryptonian. Every report from Cadmus listed it, his project title was Project Kr and he had all the powers of the man but even he struggled with his conclusion that his mother was _Amazonian_. A being of legend born from an island comprising of only immortal women that used to until recently universally hate men because a half god had ravaged and betrayed their queen. Where the hell had Cadmus gotten hold of that sort of rare genetic material? The possession of such if discovered could have caused a world war by the warlike people?

"Doctor," Batman scolded, "He wasn't aware of that yet it seems," he stated in a way that sounded like he had been ticking off theories mentally. "Didn't you get informed of this by the command centre?"

"I have heard nothing about this from command," she retorted with a hard face before it softened at the sight of the conflicted Kryptonian half breed. She had no clue he had worked out the rest unless this woman was his mother, unlikely to the point of nonsense considering she was a pretty Asian woman and they had nothing in common except for hair colour. "I assumed you had already debriefed him. It is normal procedure to interrogate any enemies under the charter."

"All this chaos is no reason to slack off on the job," Batman mumbled, obviously not expecting to be listened in on, but Conner had heard it. They had been trying to hold it as some kind of bargaining chip. Superman's guilty face all but sealed his assumptions to be accurate. Troia wasn't looking at him either, hiding her face in her hair, while the blonde Wonder Girl bit her lip and was waiting for someone else to step in. This wasn't acceptable to the teenager. Nobody was talking and the rabbit was out of the hat on this conspiracy.

As Lex would always tell him to do he would take a stab in the dark and hope for the best.

"Is it you, Wonder Woman?" Conner asked beseechingly. She was the obvious candidate taking her power into consideration and if she wasn't it the heartbeat that blew up at the accusation would give it away. He was rewarded with her dumbfounded expression, making him hone his super hearing closely enough when Troia, the one woman who had really tried to reach out heart rate skyrocketed and her hair unveiled one eye filled with… "No it's you," the teen said in a whisper, staring her directly in the eye. Troia staggered from the accusation like she had been shot, but nobody said anything else. Wonder Woman's earlier animosity at the Man of Steel now made a hell lot more sense than before when he had barely put any thought to it. "You are my mother Troia."

"There is no reason to keep hiding it," Wonder Woman said resignedly to her sister. Her shoulders had slumped and she shoved her sibling forward as if presenting her for her nephew's inspection. "This is your mother, Conner."

Conner had no idea what to do now. He had nothing to say, no reason to move or anything. He chose to slump onto his bed hard enough to rattle the steel frame and hold his head in his arms to shield him from the world around him that had in the last day gone off course and turned it upside down.

Such raw emotion had been shed only with Lex and Mercy before when he had wept when he found out he was safe at last in that hospital bed. That was a day to release pent up tears from enduring years in that tube always cold and weak. But now, tears splashed from his cheeks, his body heaved as he wept.

And cry Conner did for a very long time. He was lost to the entire world, unfeeling of the person that took him into an embrace until the tears stopped flowing. It was when reality returned to him that he could smell flowers in his comforter's scent. It made his head feel so light from the fragrant scent and she was so warm, just like Mercy when she hugged him for getting out of the hospital after being discharged with a clean bill of health.

"Are you alright now?" Wonder Woman asked maternally, patting his back. Conner looked her nose to nose before he pulled away sheepishly at his lack of clothes while he had hugged her. It formed a trusting connection to her. She was world renowned for her humanitarian efforts, hugging orphans and everything. It was that which let the teenager trust her explicitly and squeeze the hand that she offered to help anchor him when his big hands wiped his face clean.

"I'm sorry I lost it like that," Conner apologised, glancing at Troia, who wanted to come forward but behaved like a startled rabbit until Wonder Girl grabbed her arm and pulled them over to the bed. The Batman had his arms folded and Superman… Well, he kind of tried to do both. He smiled but kept his distance. He was the ultimate neutral party in any situation that waited for the answers before acting.

"Hello," she greeted lamely. Conner could understand and waited for her to take the initiative. Wonder Woman was squeezing his hand hard and Conner took his time to look at his mother for the first time with that knowledge in his heart.

Troia on the television news was a heroic heroine in the same mould as her sister. She represented the Amazonian way in her struggle against the forces of evil and in the promotion of world peace and its natural environment. Her official biography was limited in what the teenager knew about but she had spent more time in what the Amazons would call Man's world as a normal person than Diana, whom had jumped right into the fight.

Unofficially, Conner could read her like a book. She was not one to like surprises and anything big to her personal life caused her to fluster easily. She didn't like people staring at her either in uncomfortable situations, but Troia was a woman who liked to interact with people. This revelation was hitting her hard too and she must have had more time to process it than he did.

Conner was just amazed he hadn't already ran off and blown up a part of the Watchtower again to escape the pressure in his chest. A slovenly beast of claustrophobia kept on a leash by his aunt holding his hand and reminding him again of Mercy. Speaking of said woman she would be fraught at the moment with worry. She was a frosty woman in business, warmer to her boss who treated her with respect if not his equal (with his brain it was not surprising he was arrogant) and to Conner warmer still. They might have not had much time with the other but she had been genuine in her affection.

"You can sit if you would like," the teenager eventually said, patting the bed for her. Troia nervously took the seat next to him.

"My name is Donna," she introduced, "I'm your mother too, it seems." Reading her body language he was ready for her instinctive embrace, wrapping both arms around his waist. Conner returned it, feeling how she was used to a happy family and enjoyed how she loosened up after a moment. The teenager mimicked his mum and pulled her in protectively, reminding him by listening to her heartbeat without super hearing that this was all real. This was no dream and at last all his personal questions that he imagined asking her one day that he thought impossible could be asked now.

It was after Conner reconciled with his surroundings and he pulled his head up from her warm body, that he saw on the mirror on the wall across from him reflected Superman smiling earnestly at the union. Wonder Woman was mirroring her counterpart and Wonder Girl was fidgety, the blonde must have felt like a third wheel.

The Martian and Batman could have had a contest in who could be more stoic and emotionless and the Martian won without a mask on when the wily Batman saw Conner was looking in the mirror and looked away. The big green man put down a bundle of clothes, said something to the doctor that Conner didn't want to listen into, being too interested in his mother's embrace, and phased through the nearest steel wall nonchalantly.

Conner suspected he would never get used to that happening.

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A/N Sorry to love you and leave you but I felt it was the best place to end this for now. Now next time on The Prodigal Son: They find out the rest of the story and daddy throws a tantrum. The question is which one is it? Once again thanks to hockeygoalie1992 for his beta work!


	6. Chapter 6 The Power Of A Luthor

"Young Justice New World Chronicles"

"The Lost Son"

By Heliosion

Chapter 6: The Power Of A Luthor

Disclaimer: I obviously don't own the DC universe or its affiliates for if I did I wouldn't have grown men flying around with their underwear on the outside of their spandex pants. Or make a superhero whose special power is driving a taxi.

Oh yeah this is based in an original multiverse world. In this case Earth X for this is a fanfiction and I haven't had the opportunity to read every single comic produced by DC hence continuity will suffer so I will create my own in the spirit of Young Justice.

**Constructive reviews only people**

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"I think it's time we found out some things about you, Conner," Batman stated. The man who had taken the back seat to the eye opening moments of Conner's existence to the Justice League and his relation to its members up till now made his play for the lead role by facing the teenager directly opposite his hospital bed. Whilst this went on the teenager was still being protected by his newfound mother and aunt. He was sure the squeezes that actually hurt were meant to be sympathetic to his cause.

It seemed to be true about Amazons watching over their sisters equally… Or was that including brothers now too, if he were related to one?

Conner, when trying to understand a certain person, tried to get a read on the man by watching his mannerisms. The Batman was impossible to check for these without resorting to his x-ray vision. Even with that, his control it was not sufficient to merely penetrate his clothing so he could rely on what the teen had learned to look for and anything worth examining was covered up. Like, for example, looking at eyes the famed hero of Gotham city covered up with one way white lenses for signs of honesty or deceit. He was unable to search for nervous ticks or other subtle body language the human condition couldn't just cover up that was layered under stiff, unyielding Kevlar. Beneath that mask and those pointy ears was a complete mystery. The black haired boy had no idea just how to take him.

His observations, however, from reputation and listening to the man speak, spoke of a truly powerful man in heart and spirit. He lacked super abilities of a meta-human yet held a cover of fear over an entire city's population of criminals. He ruled the night and knew his respect carried into the light. His heart never drummed for fear, his body carried complete mastery of his state for any amateur watching over him, a state of mind needed for his famous detective skills and battles with beings that normally should have squashed him like a bug.

At this time, Conner was afraid of this fragile man hiding behind a mask. What ungodly secrets, the skeletons in his closet that would make or break the teen in the eyes of the Justice League could the black clad vigilante uncover that even he himself was unaware of?

"Go ahead," Conner suggested, "I can't hold this off forever. What do you need to know?"

"Firstly, how about your full name. What is it?" Batman asked bluntly.

That wasn't the question he needed to answer right now. Superman was here and Lex informed him of his irrational dislike towards the man which the teenaged Superman knew was a supreme understatement of the feelings towards to the other going back to the man of steel and his debut in Metropolis. If it were possible to see it the markings both had left in the others soul were legendary.

"Ask me after you know the rest please," Conner said, unconsciously gripping the hand of his mother for support for the first time. She gladly after being a little startled and apprehensively running her hand through her hair accepted to be his pillar of support. Superman seemed eager to back his corner and Wonder Woman looked ready to punch Batman if he sneezed the wrong way. "I promise you that my reason for withholding this information is so you do not misunderstand until after I answer all your other questions. Ask me any other you wish, but _leave_ that one until the rest has been asked, Batman."

The Dark Knight raised an eyebrow behind his frightening mask, but nodded sharply to show his acquiescent to his request.

"Bru… Batman," Diana said menacingly, at first then it lost some of its flair with Batman's pointy ears raised up in warning. Conner, noticing the slip, as did the man she addressed, who glared at her for her failure in nearly exposing his secret identity. It was something to go on. Conner and Lex had theorised the Batman was someone who was immensely wealthy or had someone with significant financial backing. If he bothered to do a simple search using the three letters leant to him about the first name (It was the way Wonder Woman said those letters that made him deduct it was a first name) a list of suspects could be compiled.

Did Batman still have a bounty on him anyway? Conner shook his head to rid that needless distraction and breathed in the smell of his mother's perfume. Some would see him as unusual for doing so but Troia seemed to find it interesting as she seemed to shiver at the action. Or find it creepy. He could live with the thoughts of it being the former.

"Do you know about your origins?" Superman asked picking up the line of questioning Batman had gone quiet about maybe because of the staring match his aunt was having with him while one hand was on her lasso. Superman's question had been expected. Of course, he wished to know the reasons surrounding his birth. The man knew his DNA had been stolen as was his mother, the young Amazon woman. Or did he think something else a bit more sophisticated or esoteric? Time travel was not such a silly suggestion and his biological age was considerable to let the theory hold its own weight. The Luthor database had a single record of a time traveller from the thirty first century in Smallville, a paragraph at most mentioning a super hero team known as the 'Legion of Superheroes'.

Conner took a deep breath to get a grip of himself while being questioned then as tonelessly as possible he stated, "I am something that a group once sponsored by the government called Cadmus created. They called the project, Project Kr where they used the DNA of Superman and who I now know to be Donna Troy to create me in an artificial womb."

"We did turn them over a couple of years ago," Batman said ponderously, folding his arms, while Troia's grip grew tighter as did Wonder Woman's grip on her lasso. "We destroyed their main facilities and went over their files. There were never any mentions of a Superman being created."

"There were plenty of files on me that you must have overlooked," Conner answered back easily drinking in the visual clues the man exhibited in his interrogation to gain a better understanding of the man behind the cowl, "My benefactor retrieved most of them from the Senator in charge of the investigation and in the ruins of the laboratory that made me."

"Do you know which facility it was?"

Conner shook his head. It had never crossed his mind to find where he had escaped from. The nightmares of being in that cage was too much to bear, the cold that even now made him shiver and the feverish feeling that made him never able to stop moving. The solar energy they had channelled into the place had only staved off death and nourished his cells for his hypothetical battle one day when the worst happened and Superman was killed by a rampaging unstoppable enemy force. It had given birth to his claustrophobia and his fear of the dark when no sound could reach his impressive hearing to comfort the teen.

"I never intended to even know what state it was in. I asked my benefactor never to show me either. I have no desire to be reminded but if it helps you out when I destroyed it the League turned up not so long after."

"The Star City lab then," Batman said unnecessarily. Conner cursed his super hearing. The temptation had been slain by ignorance but now he was conscious of the torture chamber and its location. "We found it already in ruins and assumed it was set to self-destruct."

"I woke up prematurely from my maturation chamber when they were putting me into stasis. I was flawed genetically. My genetic structure became unstable when they activated my meta-human tactile telekinetic powers. I used them by accident to break my cell somehow."

"That would explain the unusual powers Superman observed in your battle. He was watching while he recuperated with his x-ray vision."

Conner bit his lip to control his blush and ignored his question disguised as a statement. The Man of Steel, his father, had seen his clumsy brawl with Doomsday across the city that had ripped it apart piece by piece? Superman had watched him miss all those heat beams, the landing in the sewer? For some reason, Conner was positive that he was feeling _mortification_ for Superman watching and possibly criticizing his performance while he rested up. Had his debut been good for someone like him? Had he catalogued all his rookie mistakes and was glad to get back in there to get things done properly?

"I…" Conner cleared his head with another breath for his sudden bout of nerves. "The meta-human genes were thought to be incompatible with my genetic makeup and never showed any sign of interacting with the rest of my genetic code. They only seemed to degrade my genetic structure until I escaped. The scientists wrote me off as a failure and tried to put me into stasis after trying to fix it. I remember them prodding me with needles for blood samples. But my time in the chamber is hazy at best, anyway."

"So, you might not be the only one around?" Superman asked, not fearfully, but with apprehension. It was a frightening idea that someone or some organisation could have a hidden army of Kryptonian warriors just waiting to awaken.

Conner shook his head resolutely. "My benefactor said that they had tried many times before to make their own Superman, but used human DNA to try and stabilise it. They failed and when they made me they used what my benefactor thought was modified human DNA to create me with what little of Superman's DNA they had left. I was the only 'success' so to speak. My other brothers and sisters died in the gestation tanks."

"What other powers do you have?" Batman questioned, "Anything apart from the telekinesis?"

"Nothing else surfaced apart from my tactile telekinesis. All I have other than that is the abilities of Superman."

"He might have some of Donna's Amazonian traits," Wonder Woman cut in, looking at her sister thoughtfully. Conner noted how much affection the two sisters shared. "Donna and Superman share several abilities. He might have some of those and not realise it since a lot of them are similar to each of his parents."

"That is true," Donna agreed speaking up with courage drawn from her sisters encouraging looks. "At the very least he could have some sort of magical power maybe? I can project photonic blasts and create force fields. Have you ever done anything like that?"

"I've done nothing like that at all," Conner refuted, "I only have used tactile telekinesis. What I touch I can manipulate and I have dismantled machines from the inside out before. When I touch anything with individual parts especially it is very accurately disassembled. My benefactor thinks with training that this power could be capable of manipulating matter at the molecular level no matter how tightly compacted they are."

"Have you used it on people?" Batman said loudly, hoping probably to startle the passive teenager into a confession.

"Of course not!" Conner angrily said to the Batman. To even insinuate he would rip a person apart with it was abhorrent to him. If he needed to tear someone limb from limb he had easier and less strenuous ways of doing so with just his super strength. "I don't kill people! It isn't right. Cadmus made sure of that when they used the Genomorphs to teach me what I needed to know."

"So, they did make some of those things," Batman mused, confirming that they had at least some idea of what went on in those labs like Lex had uncovered. Superman looked not very amused at the line of questioning but before he was allowed to say anything, his lips moving to speak the man in black continued. "What did they teach you?"

"Before they found out I was defective," Conner started speaking over another objector this time his mother in all probability about his word choice describing himself, "They taught me everything I needed to know when I one day replaced Superman. I know geography, politics, physics, world history… They covered everything until they reclassified me."

"To what?" Wonder Woman asked quietly, sounding like she didn't want to know the answer but had asked anyway.

"I was described in their reports as a disposable deterrent," Conner muttered, still hating being described as something once used to be thrown away immediately after. The scientists had concluded the one engagement would strain his body to its limits and why they had finally decided to mothball him into stasis to lengthen the effective time period they could keep him useable for. So much untapped hatred was given to those faceless monsters, that his head pounded each time the cover to those buried feelings was uncorked. So much venom that could easily blacken the heart of a normal man's heart…

"You're hurting me," Donna whispered into his ear. Like a spooked cat, Conner let go of the woman and looked apologetic to her. He hadn't even realised he had been squeezing her that hard. The woman appeared fine, but was rubbing the injured appendage.

"I'm sorry," the teen said, well, shouted almost in shame, standing up so abruptly the Batman was forced to take a step back to avoid a collision, "I didn't mean to…" Shit what had he done to her? Was something broken? Had he hurt his mother just barely an hour into knowing she even existed? Had he messed up again? Flushed and acting like a spooked rabbit he had a montage of his most embarrassing moments when travelling across America. Like the time he had tripped and smashed an elbow through a brick wall in the middle of a busy Star City street or when someone mistook him for a Martian when flying, roaming the endless fields of corn in Kansas looking for a town to sleep in for the night instead of another snooze in his sleeping bag in the quiet farming land that did not mix well with his claustrophobia.

"It's alright," Donna said smiling softly. Wonder Woman was watching her sister closely and looked on approvingly of her sibling when she patted the spot he had been sitting in. "Sit down. Your grip was just a bit too tight that's all Conner."

Conner reluctantly sat down again but kept his arms ramrod stiff with his hands on the mattress. It was better that being ruined than hurting his mother again. She seemed a bit put out as did his aunt that must have had a higher pain tolerance or something as he had been holding her hand too.

"Batman," Superman said probably seeing his idiocy as a good time to stop for now, "Let's all take a break now before we continue. He isn't even dressed yet and could probably do with something to eat. Go to the command centre and check with Mr Terrific about that hurricane in Honduras. I can handle the rest of the questioning."

Conner silently thanked his father for the intermission requested. That part of him remembering Cadmus and all those ambivalent feelings, bile, pain and suffering that made him ever irrational and created self-perpetuating demons that dogged his day to day life.

"No, you can't," Batman argued back gruffly, "I can tell this situation has affected your ability to be objective."

"But at least let Conner get dressed!" Superman came back with heatedly, "He has done nothing but cooperate with us so far."

"What about the escape attempt? If we had used the old chamber on the sixth floor his little rampage could have torn apart the secondary power couplings." Batman shot back, folding his arms menacingly. It was a powerful show of manliness that the quiet Superman returned by showing off his iconic pose where he held his closed fists on his hips with his elbows pointing straight out with his chest puffed out.

It was like staring at a pair of life sized mint condition action figures.

"Are you surprised _really_?" Superman asked. "He wakes up after a battle that nearly killed him in a dark room with no idea where he was and you just heard he was made…" Superman smiled to Conner apologetically who didn't show how much he appreciated Superman trying to be tactful. "Where he was _born_ who we know were monsters playing god. How about we give the guy some dignity before we find out more of what are probably very personal memories."

"Yes, Batman," Wonder Woman piped in warningly and remembering to use his code name this time around newcomers not privileged to that information, "My nephew is taking a break."

"Nephew?" Batman asked curiously. "You do know he was created in a laboratory, right?"

That seemed to light the detonator to the bomb that blew up the dam keeping the calm façade, replacing her nurturing persona with the warrior woman that had beaten up aliens and battered gods. Conner ascribed this unnatural shift of personality for the rest of his life as 'her scary moment'.

"I was made of clay and given life by the gods so does that mean my mother isn't my mother or Donna isn't my sister?" Diana almost growled, stalking her prey by crouching on the side of the bed, ready to leap. Conner unconsciously slid into the safety of his mother's knee from his very frightening aunt watching the Mexican standoff and silently admiring the stoic Dark Knight, who didn't even flinch from the murderous stare of his newfound aunt. The silent Wonder Girl had managed to retrieve the clothes J'onn had left behind and ushered him to another cubicle while the adults talked out their issues.

Superman, by this point, as he lost visual contact, was standing between them, arms out to keep them apart. Meanwhile he was playing at referee to the best of his ability outside of using force and using his body to keep Diana, rampaging woman with super powers away from the statue like Batman who took this in stride without panicking.

"Here are your clothes," Wonder Girl said, offering him a plastic bag. The teenaged male accepted her offering and unzipped it revealing a black t-shirt and a pair of sweat pants not unlike what he already wore at work or on the road. Once he returned home (it was inevitable), he expected Lex to try and paw off that platinum card on him and this time there wasn't a road trip to stop the charismatic billionaire from winning the argument.

You just didn't argue with Lex Luthor. He was the most brilliant genius of his time (as long as you avoided talking about the freakishly intelligent kid in Japan), with a silver tongue that had tamed talking gorilla geniuses, alien races that used ray guns like humans did turning on light switches. Conner even recalled how Lex had famously talked down a mechanical god a year before he was born from obliterating the universe after having manipulated it for his own ends during his criminal career. With that sort of resume you could understand why Conner knew he had no hope in hell of talking his way out of it.

"Thank you," Conner said, slipping on the snug t-shirt and pants. "It feels better to be dressed," he added, regarding his white lie as something expected of him and had to be consciously reminded. Those tricky cultural norms were something he had spent a long time trying to master.

"They must have turned on the privacy setting," she said suddenly out of the blue. Conner saw her cheeks were blushing and cocked his head without thinking at her statement. "Every bed and room on the Lunar Watchtower is rigged up with them. They scramble any visual sensors or audio equipment and prevent any sound escaping from within."

Conner reached out with his super hearing and found whatever they used did not impede his hearing, rather muffled it but he could still make out what was said without any trouble. When he tried to use his x-ray vision, the image was so blurry it hurt his head enough for him to stop.

"If you dare say that again about Conner in front of him or around me, you will not like what will happen!" Wonder Woman shouted from the next cubicle.

"I never meant it as an insult, just stating a fact," Batman drawled, "Maybe you should calm down before you do something you might regret later."

"What did you say?" the elder Amazon said, banging something metallic if he guessed the crunching noise like someone had stood on a tin can correctly. It might have been the bed collapsing or something Conner wasn't sure or not if he wanted to know. "I don't think I heard right," she added dangerously, "Did you just tell me to calm down after what you said was probably the most degrading thing you could tell a person…"

"What are they saying?" Wonder Girl asked, jolting him from his eavesdropping.

"Wonder Woman sounds ready to kill Batman," Conner said without thinking.

"I always knew that Supergirl could hear me," the teenage girl said as if discovering the answer to an unsolved riddle. For some reason, the super teen felt a twinge of guilt for revealing his genetic family's ability to bypass the privacy in the Watchtower.

"I just tried for the first time, really," the teen stated, emphasising his honesty. There had been times when he had been practising his super hearing and caught onto something intriguing, but always broke away and focused on something else thinking that he wouldn't like someone spying unwittingly on his personal affairs. "I am still a little spooked by all this. I was expecting this to all come out one day but…"

"Destroying part of the Lunar Watchtower was not part of your plans?" she joked, continuing with a gentle smile at his embarrassment, "You didn't cause too much damage. They already sealed the breach, but the solar chamber is unusable for a week."

"Do all of them know?" Conner asked. He was seeing his chances of getting along with the Justice League as a whole seemed somewhat slim after trashing part of their very expensive clubhouse.

"I don't know," she said, "I just suckered you into confirming what I suspected. You are pretty easy to fluster," she added, giggling that came to a halt when the metal wall shuddered and bulged from a powerful impact.

Conner pricked his ears to see if Superman needed help suppressing an angry Amazon aunt only to mentally apologise for getting the wrong one. His mother had taken over the angry protective relative role from her sister. "You are going to ask your questions for two more minutes Batman then I am taking my son to my quarters until we figure out what to do with him. I will find out where he lives and bring him to his benefactor."

"We still don't know enough about him to simply let the Kryptonian go," Batman argued, "He has power, real powers that we have not got near enough information on. They could be limitless in scope theoretically. He even admits the potential of his abilities. It's why I wanted J'onn to be here. He is listening into our thoughts outside trying to see if he has telepathy or any other psychokinetic power."

Conner, startled obviously by the back handed tactics of the Batman wildly scanned the neighbouring walls for the Martian Manhunter and found him sitting in a closet rigidly still. His insides were in reverse to the human body, heart being on the right etc. His chest had five more ribs than the normal human skeleton, a redundancy for what could be described as a pancreas and he seemed to have a spine with an unidentified film coating it that almost doubled its electrical conductivity in the nerves as it was so bright he had to squint to look at it. The Martian seemed to see him staring and nodded to him in respect of being discovered and phased through the wall now the masquerade had been uncovered out of sight.

"_Are you there?"_ Conner broached nervously, but his thoughts were ignored, making him feel stupid. Then, there was another bang with a scraping sound like metal shearing off metal producing sparks, loud enough that Wonder Girl could cringe at the poor sucker being targeted by both Amazon women. His mother was fiery like her sister or was it back to his aunt?

It made him wonder about the woman, his maternal grandmother that taught them to be that headstrong and caring at the same time. What would she think about this whole situation?

"Let us all calm down and focus on other issues, and please, Donna, give me that knife and don't pull your bracelet off the walls," Superman said, hopelessly attempting to defuse the situation.

"Perhaps we should discuss who is going to take care of him?" Batman rationalised, "We cannot seem to even agree on that without resorting to blows."

"I still say he should be in Themyscira," Wonder Woman said wearily repeating herself. "All Amazons have to learn the ways of our people."

"He is the first boy born with Amazon blood since ancient times, if you don't count Hercules coming to the island sister," Troia countered, "Superman has to be taken into consideration here as well. He is the father and we can't just take him away to an island that he isn't allowed to come and go to visit without a three day diplomatic conference to arrange the permits. Mother already is wary enough about you and me living in man's world. Do you think she would appreciate us flying in and introducing her grandson, who is already almost the same age as me? And have you forgotten he already has someone taking care of him? You need to also remember this benefactor of his that he has repeatedly spoken about."

"You mean the one he won't name?" Batman slipped in smoothly, skilfully slithering in that fact to ruffle up some feathers. Where had the man gone that had argued his case with the Green Lantern and reminded the tired galactic policeman that Superman owed his life perhaps to his son? Had it been an act? The revelations had taken him off his game a bit but that was a burning question. What did the Batman gain from becoming the enemy?

Pulling away at that point, afraid of having the truth rubbed in his face, they were really arguing in there and already coming to blows. To Conner, this fight served only to affirm that his arrival was only causing chaos and strife. They were brought all on his shoulders by his own faults. First, there was his lack of experience in battle, needing him to require hospital treatment that had also stolen his ability to control his first encounter with the man of steel. Then waking up and his fears guiding his rampage through somewhere that was trying to keep him alive and now this…

He had an aunt that could take the title of the mightiest woman on earth no question about it. He could hang out with his own mum in a club and nobody would even blink at them. Oh she was a warm person. Her comments about Themyscira and her feminist mother did not dissuade him that she was not happy to accept him. Her embrace had been welcoming like accepting a long lost child after a long journey away and the endearing belief of his aunt that their home was his to call the same blanketed him in the warmth of a readymade family comparable to Lex Luthor and Mercy that served as part of his major concern.

How did you tell your father, the one who half of your DNA came from that while you were hiding from the world, his worst enemy was given the title of father? If that was not enough, Batman and from observation some of the Justice League were utterly afraid of what he was capable of. Who wouldn't be afraid of a flying, space worthy juggernaut who could fire beams out of his eyes that melted stone, laughed at the heart of a nuclear explosion and could fucking make his own iced tea by breathing on it while dismantling a cell phone with a touch?

This was the part of humans Conner wished didn't exist, this inefficient chaos with unlimited factions depending on social groups, race and age. It made getting involved in the world hard as he was only two years free of Cadmus and catching up with what other teenagers had spent their lives being groomed for. Conner almost felt like a coma patient waking up after twenty years to find his world had grown up and life had passed him by. The lavished democracy of America only fuelled this individuality. Despite its drawbacks Conner sometimes felt a dictatorship was the way to go. At least everyone knew what they were meant to believe in.

"Are they still fighting in there?" Wonder Girl asked and the black haired teen nodded while concentrating on his eavesdropping. He must have lowered his guard again and what he could disseminate from her she was skilled at reading people like Conner liked to think he was.

"Go away, Bruce," Wonder Woman snarled, revealing Batman's first name at the very least for Conner to keep under his hat. Having such information could help endear him or force the man to comply better with his desire to be amicable. He had no desire in him to wage war with the man who held sway over the Man of Steel. "Just go away right now and leave this to Donna, Superman and I."

"But," Batman automatically began to argue, but another unsettling sound echoed in that room that his ears barely detected. She sounded like she had growled enough for her teeth to grate and something dripped to the floor that stole away his impressive resolve. "Fine then, Diana, we can play it your way for now. Write a report when you are done. I will go brief the rest of the founders. See you at the meeting at eight." His soft footsteps went to the door, showing a man at war with his self-control as he marched out of the infirmary passing their cubicle by and a woman's breath was heavy like she had been running forever and Superman… It was his voice muttering barely above the spectrum of sound to decipher for his training… maybe a nervous habit that did not belong to him. It seemed off as nothing was nervous about the man of steel, another mystery or just perhaps proof that not even Conner Luthor was not immune from the myth that the man of tomorrow was infallible. "I know you were listening, Conner," the black garbed man remarked, turning round as the door slid open in farewell before continuing his march back to his station.

"Scary," Wonder Girl said, remarking precisely what Conner was thinking right at that moment. That man generated a presence wherever he went and the teenaged male could only admire his aunt, mother and father for standing up to it. "It seems they're done for now. Let's get you something to eat."

"They still need to ask some questions," Conner said, feeling it would be easier to admit his biggest secrets without the monstrous appearing Batman breathing down his neck. Why had he bent to their wishes? Nothing in his character explained the sudden withdrawal from the interrogation.

Why did Batman have to be so damn confusing to understand? He wasn't sticking to any pattern he could discern! Was it deliberate?

"Are you hungry?" his mother asked cheerfully. She and the others including the petite doctor walked in with smiles. "After we all eat we need to ask a few more questions then we can decide what to do with you."

"Does your benefactor have a way we can contact him?" Diana asked kindly.

"_It shouldn't be that hard. He does own about two hundred satellites,"_ Conner thought, "He isn't hard to get a hold of Wonder Woman..." He nearly jabbered when Diana began to pout, "No problem at all, auntie."

"Excellent," Troia said with another smile that restored his confidence with this person, the woman that helped give him life. He returned it, sitting down on the bed next to him. Her beautiful eyes trailed the space next to him and she almost sat down but Wonder Girl hijacked the spot. This appeared to be a regular occurrence when his mother rolled her eyes and walked over to the skulking Doctor Light, who, up till now, had almost vanished from the harrumph generated in her sick bay.

"We need some food for all of us," Troia asked the doctor.

"I normally frown on people eating in my sickbay, but I guess this one time won't hurt," the doctor joked, tapping some keys in the computer handheld she kept cradled in the crook of her arm.

"It won't be long before she has the chef make us something good to eat after this long day," Superman said smiling. "I can't wait to get home and sleep."

"You do sleep then?" Conner asked watching the professor chat to her computer pad. His sleep cycle was much less than normal human beings. In fact, he was quite capable of staying cognizant with just three hours of sleep and struggled to rest more than that at any one time even when he was using the relaxant. "I never sleep more than three hours a night."

"That's normal for a Kryptonian exposed to yellow sun light," Superman explained, "Our brain cells store so much energy we can forego sleep for a long time. My personal best was a fortnight."

"And the heat vision when we are…" He left it hanging but Superman got the gist and nodded. While Conner was as socially integrated as an asylum patient, he still had the usual biological impulses that he needed to curb. A few slips while daydreaming had made him burn his hand when he had to cover his eyes to avoid incinerating the woman he had been admiring. "And have you learned to control your super strength when you aren't Superman?" Conner had this instinct for urgency and started to continue throwing around questions. "I've got an eidetic memory… did that come from you too?" He turned to Donna who had been listening in but blushed at his curious stare. "Or does it come from the Amazons?"

Superman chuckled at the questions, but smirked to show he was indulging the teen but without being condescending about it. Donna regained her cool while Diana started getting enthusiastic with the sparkle in her eyes and finally the Wonder Girl, whose name he still didn't know was grinning. Maybe they were all feeling as comfortable as he did right now. Something in the air was appealing to him and his restraint to just observe was peeled away.

"I had sixteen years practice with my parents to master my powers. It was on a farm and I was able to get experience when I started out as Superboy diverting hurricanes and stopping meteor showers. By the time I reached Metropolis, I was skilled enough to do what I do now."

"What about the eidetic memory? I was told by my benefactor that was fairly uncommon amongst humans."

"That is again from my side of your _family_ Conner," Superman confirmed, emphasising the word in a way that made Conner shiver pleasantly. You could just tell Superman was completely okay with this on some level or had gotten somewhat used to it or perhaps relieved? But the latter seemed silly? What did the Man of Steel need to be happy about knowing about Conner like this? And it was a relief that his eidetic memory was not something Cadmus had created. Lex had always speculated on how many secret talents that weren't so blatantly obvious that the yellow sun boon gave the Man of Steel. Heightened memory was officially one of them.

"Did I get anything from Donna Troy?"

"We don't know yet," his mother answered pouting like his aunt that made him eagerly test how intimate a title she would tolerate, "Superman and I share several powers in common. I am capable of magic to a lesser degree like Diana and Cassie, but rely on the powers that make it hard to tell if you did get anything from me like my super strength and speed. Maybe you might develop the ability to fire photonic energy blasts or make force fields. Time will only tell Conner."

It was a lot to take in. He had so many questions answered and some like the identity of Wonder Girl that he had forgotten to ask about until now was answered without any hint of deception on anyone's part.

"Dinner is here!" Professor Hoshi opened to the door to admit two blue suited civilians with a stainless steel trolley, wheeling in a tray wonderfully smelling food. His stomach rumbled and he honestly couldn't remember the last time he ate something.

Conner and the rest of the superheroes accepted the grilled burgers and salad with equal fervency. They all sat down around the bed, the doctor included and devoured their meals in silence. This continued until Cassie finished her meal first, followed by him and so on until Superman, the polite one, used a napkin, displaying some old style manners that captivated his attention until the plates were put away and everyone knew the questioning was about to resume.

"Now, Conner, our security camera in your solar chamber showed you panicked when you woke up. Our instruments that were included in your drip also registered what we believe to be some kind of anxiety disorder or stress related illness."

Conner had hoped they hadn't looked deeper into that. On the surface, the teen could have gotten away from admitting his weakness to his family. It was a personal shame Lex reminded him of from time to time to help, in his own way, one day to find it in himself to overcome, and it was dangerous for someone possessing his might. His psychiatrist was pleased about his progress, however, constantly talked about taking it a step at a time and monitored him constantly via telephone calls or even infrequent meetings. She enjoyed a generous retainer for her troubles and had even gone to the trouble of receiving documentation to allow her to administer the relaxant in careful doses due to the dangers of using blue kryptonite.

Conner took his fears aside again about how they would take a super teen with a phobia. His wild imagination that didn't want to lose this closeness that had been made was cast aside as he gathered the steely nerve that had fought Doomsday and answered them honestly.

"I suffer from claustrophobia and I don't like the dark either," he said lessening the latter condition with a vocal inflection to retain some pride. "My psychiatrist thinks it's because of my time in the maturation chamber and I have…" He searched around and the collective sympathy egged him on. "I have nightmares about it. I don't like the dark when I can't hear anything. In silence I am reminded of my time at Cadmus and I overreacted and damaged your Watchtower."

He closed his eyes and braced himself for the reaction. Would they see that as justifiable for the millions of dollars of damage he could have caused? Or would they shun him, now being someone with great power but very dangerous flaws? But luck was in his favour and the result was in his favour.

"Those bastards," Cassie darkly spat under her breath, but may as well as yodelled it across the room to his hearing making his eyes open with surprise. Conner was unprepared for the hug she gave him from the side, wrapping her arms around his muscular middle and made him jump like a frightened rabbit. Diana put a hand on his shoulder offering extra support while taking a liquid chair that came out of the floor, making him jump again and his mother plus Superman looked to each other in agreement.

"But you are getting all the help you need to deal with this?" Superman asked, "If your benefactor needs help paying the bills the Justice League funds all the medical care for people like you and me who have dangerous powers."

"He," wincing at the slip offering gender to the man of steel, "Hires only the best. I am going to the best one money could buy." That was another thing, a clue Superman would think about and if Batman was here could use to play detective putting all the individual jigsaw pieces together. In fact Conner's spark of paranoia had him thinking the Batman was watching from another room or listening in. He decided to avoid giving anything else away, not until the time was right to reveal all.

"We can help _him_ anyway," Diana said strongly, "We know several children who don't have parents with powers or mentors in the JLA with powers that need specialist care. We pay for those people too."

Was that a hint or something to test if he wanted to be a superhero? How did he answer that if he was guessing this correctly or not? It had not honestly crossed his mind yet. Did defeating Doomsday or fighting him count as doing superhero stuff? Did that make him a superhero, a Teen of Steel to his father's man or a Wonder family member? Or a guy who just happened to be there at the right time because that was what he had wanted to do? He shook his head at all those pointless questions when the biggest one remained unanswered.

To be a hero or not to be one was the question, if Hamlet didn't mind him adlibbing a line from the famous play. Lex had always promised that no matter what it was his choice, whether he chose to work for Luthor Corp, be a normal person hiding his powers forever or even go out and be a hero. He had even left it hanging in his usual manner that becoming a villain wouldn't really concern him, after all that was be hypocritical with his own chequered past. Did the Justice League or, specifically, his mother and father have the same opinion? What had driven him in battle to act like a hero?

Then it hit him. He had wanted to protect his foster father. It was the drive to safeguard something that had given him the will to do his job. He hadn't been confident in his powers or his chances of winning, but he had done it anyway. Superman had been on his mind for the entire battle but his reasons had all been to protect Lex whom was somewhere in that city while the monster ravaged it. He could have foregone his honour and ignored the favour that Lex called in but he didn't…

Conner Luthor was a superhero. That sentence seemed to just fit. He was sure Lex would want to help and so did this Justice League. His father and mother could guide him and so could Lex. Now the only problem was…

How did you convince Lex Luthor and Superman plus the Justice League and an angry Amazon nation to talk civically in a room without resorting to destroying the building they held the meeting in? He could only imagine a simple question for a drink of water that would turn into an accusation about trying to poison the other person and if someone made a bang like a ring rattling off the table top that another took for a gun or setting off a bomb downstairs. His imagination zipped past a number of scenarios that all ended horrifically and that all came full circle to Conner was _still_ stuck on just telling Superman who his benefactor actually was.

The super teenager had no desire to see anyone kill each other just yet… Oh why did things have to be so indomitable? At least that was his only problem right now. The Batman at least had…

"Batman to the infirmary," drawled the famous Batman jarring Conner from his prophetic visions of doom. From the wall a compartment opened and sliding doors revealed a television screen with the Batman sitting in a chair. Behind him the background was extremely busy with activity. Conner could hear individual voices all talking about space related matters or about incidents down on earth.

"What do you need, Batman?" Superman asked heatedly, "You barely gave us an hour but we have almost everything we needed to ask him."

"Forty-five minutes," Batman corrected, "I was listening on the Watchtower's surveillance cameras. We have a call from the president on line one and he insists you take it Superman."

This was certainly unexpected. Why would the President find the time to talk to Superman with his country in crisis unless… Conner shook his head at such an idea. Not even that man had that sort of leverage… Did he?

"Patch him through," Superman asked. "I'll see what he wants."

"Patching through," Batman dictated.

There was a collective gasp as the screen changed to reveal a bald man in a sharp suit and wearing an almost bored expression Conner knew all too well. He was puffing a cigar and the president stood beside him, an older man with a suit that swamped him. He seemed meek and cowardly for the leader of the free world as he sat at his presidential desk with all the charisma of a skunk surrounded by rotting fruit.

Lex tended to have that effect to everyone he met. Not even the leader of the free world could stand up to the entity, the sheer presence of the illustrious Lex Luthor, who, by all rights, should be in a jail cell and nowhere near the oval office that fitted him better than its elected official.

"Hello, Superman," Lex Luthor brogue voice said over the president whose lips were practically flapping. "I was wondering if you still had a certain someone that I care about very much in your clubhouse." Lex caught his eye and the smirk only grew as he brazenly leant against the famous desk of the president spilling ash. "Ah good to see you my son and how have you been, Conner?"

That was when the cat was out of the bag. Diana had taken her turn at squeezing his body too tightly with her hand maybe trying to compress his shoulder into a diamond to compensate her for the heart attack she should be suffering. Cassie stiffened in her embrace like she had just discovered she was hugging an angry bear and pulled away. Conner gulped at the outing of his benefactor and refused to look his mother whom was giving him the look a car accident victim had just before impact or his father... who was glaring with malice at the television screen in the eye and his hand shaking in suppressed fury. The heir to Superman was really regretting holding back for this long. Why hadn't he already told them now that the issue with revealing his fears was over with? He had been so close and now it would look suspicious now. He was so stunned at how in one stroke his plans had fallen apart with only one thing that could come to mind.

"I've been better," Conner squeaked, "How are you, Lex?" he asked shamefacedly. This was going to hurt.

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A/N

And there we go. The end of chapter six at last and the end of the recovery arc at last. We now go to a time skip, not a big one but remember guys to review! Remember to thank my beta hockeygoalie1992 for all his hard work!


	7. Chapter 7 Concessions

"Young Justice New World Chronicles"

"The Lost Son"

By Heliosion

Chapter 7: Concessions

Disclaimer: I obviously don't own the DC universe or its affiliates for if I did I wouldn't have grown men flying around with their underwear on the outside of their spandex pants. Or make a superhero whose special power is driving a taxi.

Oh yeah this is based in an original multiverse world. In this case Earth X for this is a fanfiction and I haven't had the opportunity to read every single comic produced by DC hence continuity will suffer so I will create my own in the spirit of Young Justice.

**Constructive reviews only people**

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Today was going to be the best day of his life. He could taste the atmosphere. His skin could feel the excitement long since thought lost when he had chosen to reform. He could smell the tension that rifled through the white walls of the conference room. Oh, he could go on all day about the senses that his superior intellect was cultivating enough to describe a banquet about this day, one that had been savoured for almost two years.

Lex Luthor was going to enjoy duelling verbally over the status of Conner Luthor, _his_ foster son that just so happened to have a father who was his worst enemy, his Napoleon to Superman's Nelson. If only to add to the enjoyment his recent discovery of the mother's lineage brought in the women only nation of Themyscira and its royal family, whom could be called his in-laws.

The opportunities in that discovery were astronomical in itself. An entire nation's royal family had links to him now. He couldn't count the possibilities of having someone who could whisper in a sovereign monarch's ear. His mind did not just think of the diplomatic, economic, political and god knows what else power wielded but it was also succinct that now it included the personal pleasure of knowing that Wonder Woman herself, the self-righteous feminist bitch would tread more carefully around him from now on in case she offended her nephew. That could only help him if somehow the reformed mastermind had to return to crime.

He was a man who was well read; his intellect devoured everything that its eyes observed thanks to a wonderful photographic memory. From an early age he could recall in perfect detail everything he had done. He could remember pushing Sammy Jones in preschool down a flight of stairs for nudging him while he was reading a book on astrophysics two weeks before. Fond memories of applying famous tactics of Sun Tzu to getting a jury to again and again see him not guilty for something that had obviously been perpetrated by him.

This meant that everything he did had a reason behind it. He had demanded when the chaos of revealing his son's guardian to the Justice League with little problem for him to be beamed down to the docks of Metropolis. This had aided him in relocating his son to a safe and hidden place, using the boy as a resource to dictate terms and hold back the hand of his near god like foe and his club of equally powerful allies. He had then made them wait a week, weaving words and half-truths plus genuine affection (only a recent acquisition to his repertoire) to prepare his very travelled son, who was not nearly as open to him as before, the teen had left probably due to exposure to humanity. Like any other person, life had worn away the soft and pliant edges leaving a razor sharp if not still a little brittle point that could pierce through most illusions Lex could try to employ.

Lex was very proud of his boy growing up the way he had. He hadn't liked losing control of Conner's development. But now, if he could, the rich man would've shed a tear in pride of how the teen had come along from his travels, instead he bought the teenager that steak he had promised and had Mercy, the woman with developing maternal instincts, lavish him with bottled up desire to mother him a little. It only helped Lex establish a bolthole to make Conner want to stay with his 'family'.

But anyway, after isolating and controlling the flow of information Conner could receive under the guise of recuperation and long (excellent) therapy from his psychiatrist, Doctor Thinner, Lex, in his infinite wisdom, left his nemesis guessing. Then, out of the blue, around two forty in the morning, today when he was aware the Flash was on monitor duty (wonderful thing his patented communicator scanners), the buffoon of their senior members authorised to be on shift, he had contacted them, left them details on where to go to and when then shut off just as Superman smashed his way in through the elevator shaft in his haste to speak.

The look in his eyes had been amusing. He had never seen the Superman so dishevelled but admired him anyway just that tiny bit alongside the Amazons after they had gotten over the initial shock and kept treating him as they had been. Oh, he had read their body language easily enough. The mother, Troia, was easily flustered but recovered with a vengeance, the older sister much the same, only he knew from personal experience that the man's world was harder for her to adapt to compare to her sibling. The Wonder Girl was someone he intended to get his son to know better. She seemed like someone who could be useful, even if she was unaware of any future ventures after this meeting was done.

So now he waited in Conference room 3 of the Metropolis Plaza, one of the only surviving buildings left fully intact after the run in with Doomsday. It was on the top floor with wide glass windows surrounding it on three sides plus the roof. It was designed to appear larger than it was, with light colours, mahogany meeting table matching the expensive black leather fixed seating. He had deliberately chosen to make the highly polished table round, a bit of psychological warfare to allow some of the JLA to believe there concerns and enquiries were all being treated equally. Lex in his finest suit, made just that morning after flying the man in from Milan on his jet and chewing on that cigar he had been saving for when one of his schemes had finally killed Superman back when it mattered to him, retained the chair facing the destruction that the precious Justice League had failed to neutralise. Above him, the projector screen which would be a focal point for the meeting as well as the position of the hotel owned laptop and projector.

There would be no question to the people with the right mentality like Batman or Superman whom was controlling this meeting. If that didn't work, the Team Luthor teams stationed on the helicopter pad armed with kryptonite tipped bullets would be less subtle.

He had arrived thirty minutes earlier and paid the receptionist a $1000 to exaggerate the time Lex had been waiting for their arrival. He had even disabled the air conditioning apart from above his chair to make them swelter in those ridiculous costumes from the balmy city weather. When and not if judging from his request to learn how to control his powers by any means necessary he became a hero the business whiz would teach the boy the meaning of the word practical and not fanciful.

Lex could only relish the thought of Conner becoming a superhero, one that followed the ideals of reality and not that hogwash about world peace. World peace was an illusion to a race that thrived on butchering each other if the need arose. While Lex had no idea if Kryptonian society had attained what Superman strived for, the genius did not know but something in his enemy's past or what he had learned had turned him into something that made the bald man squirm in discomfort.

Conner would be a symbol too, a protector for the world, but he would be someone hopefully that preached about everyone doing their part to create progress throughout the world. The world had gotten soft under Superman, his powers had made a thriving humanity too used to being safe and expected him to pull a rabbit out of his hat for every little crisis that crept up, both domestically and in outer space. Where, amongst most other worlds, Lex Luthor had heard of coped just fine without them, and in many cases, had turned out incredibly well without heroic defenders.

"_Mr Luthor, they have arrived,"_ buzzed his head of security, Mr Aldrin, from an earpiece. He never bothered to remember their names having gone through ten of them in the last ten years until Mr Aldrin arrived. 'Coincidentally' that was the same time Lex gave up villainy and, like any other security head, Mr Aldrin hadn't had the chance to lose his temper fighting Superman and be defeated. Even now, it felt strange to know anything other than the Man of Steel could kill a man with his pinkie finger yet Lex had walked out of every encounter relatively unscathed.

"Very good, let them in," the man said putting on his game face that always seemed to rile the man of steel. It was best to use his 'A' game for this. It wasn't like he could lose much from this meeting if the State department had anything to say about it or failing that cowling the president whom owed him millions in campaign donations. "Who has arrived from the League?"

"_Superman, sir,"_ the man said gruffly, _"He has arrived with Wonder Woman and her sister, sir."_

The players had all been in his projections. He was surprised they hadn't tried to bring the Martian telepath in as well and they had sensors placed on every window of the building to check for any shape shifting intruders that scanned for molecular anomalies that the Martian had when looking like someone else. Batman was also considered to be statistically high for an appearance due to his nature as a nosy detective, but it was unlikely he would try to sneak in. Every room on the top four floors had been bought and occupied by members of his security staff since the week before, but that was also true for every major hotel in the city centre in case they had figured out the alias used to book the rooms.

"Send the sister to the panic room," Lex commanded. He had remembered Troia, the former Wonder Girl, and Donna Troy, whatever name you wished to use being very protective of _his_ son whom was right now enjoying some DVDs and Mercy's company. He had been hesitant to let Conner out of his sight, for the League had proven their detective skills in finding him in inhospitable areas. She was key to all this. Conner had always mentioned her first; after all, the teen was wise to voice his glowing comments to Mercy to avoid upsetting his foster father. With those facts, the mastermind had stringed together a reasonable hypothesis to help his goals along, and Lex was positive that the girl would go right to her child and defer everything to the other two. It was handy, for he had battled very little with Donna Troy and no witty remarks had been exchanged in the heat of battle. It made his job easier, knowing he knew which strings to pull when it came to Superman and Wonder Woman. "And please have Senator Josephs and my lawyers ready to meet them at the door."

"_Yes, Mr Luthor."_

With his latest move, he was close to check. Lex was determined to make this meeting make trench warfare seem enjoyable. He had several artillery barrages worth of ace in the holes and with little time to prepare for a counterattack, the League would be off balance with his first barrage, his stooge Senator Josephs and Lex's army of ravenous lawyers to deal with.

He then waited in silence for the battle of wills to begin. He opened his briefcase and extracted the legal documents for his fostering. Everything was there. In case they tried to use Conner's journey against him (he had been fourteen at the time physically), employment records, papers showing how long it had taken to establish his age with statements from scientists and government officials declaring his lack of schooling necessary due to the issue of what to dub his age at until a year later when fifteen was chosen for him. Lex had already conjured up an elite school in every major city in the East eager to accept Conner if compromises had to be made. He looked like the model parent and it had better do with the money it cost to arrange it all, favours to offer such as Metropolis West School For Boys getting a new computer lab and Brentwood Academy boarding school in Gotham that was building a larger swimming pool with a two million dollar grant from his charity foundation.

It was the buzz of his loyal attack dogs posing as lawyers that sounded the alert for Lex to put his elbows on the table lazily, puffing away with what was left of his cigar while he rested his head on his hands. It was an arrogant gesture with a dash of showmanship, something he had plenty of practice in but really it was amazing after all this time how easy it was really to throw his opposition off their game.

"_Superman and Wonder Woman arriving, sir,"_ Mr Aldrin announced, while at the same time the doors opened and spilling in was his staff and his guests of honour. Oh, and the senator as well, who was doing a great job (not) of keeping eye contact with the Amazon's face and not her breasts. In the hubbub, Superman was staring right at him with those suspicious laser firing eyes of his. He stormed past the mob, his very presence sending everyone skittering away like the man was on fire while poor Wonder Woman was surrounded by hungry sharks and tightly holding a yellow plastic folder to her chest.

"Lex," Superman greeted. His voice was enough to quiet the lawyers and the senator that sat on the opposite side of the table from the angry superheroes.

"Superman," Lex returned lazily, making sure the fostering certificate from the CPS (Child Protection Services) could easily be seen for his incredible eyesight. He waved airily at the encircling lawyers to let Wonder Woman walk past unmolested and took her seat first with her arms folded. Superman never took his eyes off his adversary and sat down as well. "It is good to see you as well, Wonder Woman. I take it your sister is staying with _my_ son?"

"Your son?" Diana snapped accusingly, ignoring the pleasantries and taking the bait Lex threw at them before they could get comfortable. The leather was quite uncomfortable from the heat. He would have smirked between his fingers, but Superman had x-ray vision. It was better to be safe than sorry.

"Yes, my _son_," Lex stated, "According to the CPS, anyway."

"And the senate," the senator added, "The committee that discussed all this concluded that Mr Luthor was a safe and nurturing guardian for Conner Luthor and made his ward." The man shrunk into himself, his balding head sweating like a spit roasted pig as the princess of the Amazons shot a glare that would be banned around old people with heart conditions.

"Here you can see for yourself," Lex offered, sliding the paper across the table. Diana snatched it off the polished surface and examined it. Once she was done with it, she offered it to the silent man of steel with a scowl who shook his head.

"I scanned all the documents already," Superman said, his eyes once more never leaving Lex's head. The former megalomaniac in question was enjoying the free show. It never got old watching the Man of Steel look collected. "One of the papers you have also lists employment records for him in thirty states. Care to explain that?"

"Obviously, you did not read closely enough," Lex said inwardly grinning at the lead flakes in the grey folder he had used to store a particular piece of paper, "The senate committee took over a year to decide what age he actually was and by then the red tape and the bureaucracy were done with the paperwork it was two months ago where my _son_," Lex explained stopping to see if the vein on the warrior princess's head would burst. She was gritting her teeth and probably one step away from snarling like a Neanderthal. "Had already become sixteen and decided to keep moving around. It is also the day he chose as his birthday. It was based on the first day he had awoken after the genetic therapy that Luthor Corp pioneered to treat his genetic degradation. You might have heard it now being researched to see if it can be used to treat cancer?"

Thinking he had laid it on a bit thick in his mocking statement Lex spotted Superman's 'tell' when something was news to him. His forehead wrinkled and Wonder Woman could win the world title for charades with the almost theatrical dumfounded expression on hers at the news.

"_It's just as well that she isn't an actress,"_ Lex thought humorously, examining their body language closer knowing the shock he had inadvertently created would expose a chink in their armour for his intellect to exploit. _"I'm glad I insisted they check her for weapons though."_

"He never mentioned his treatment," Superman admitted sourly.

"We never got the chance to ask!" Wonder Woman angrily barked, sending one standing lawyer to his knees from fright.

"I was unaware he had joined the Justice League," Lex said cleverly, "To our laws, taking a minor without parental consent is kidnap in America. I was within my rights to have him returned to me."

There was no way they could retort without falling into a trap. Superman's hand banged the table enough to crack it but it was enough for the raven haired woman to realise what was going on and stop as her lips were moving to say something no doubt scathing.

"That table isn't covered by the deposit," the senator said before returning to his very skilled turtle impression. Senator Josephs was chosen as his patsy for three good reasons. The man knew when to run, obeyed orders when given like taking control of said committee that looked into Conner's status and how to hide anything remotely construed as corruption. He was also a weak willed sycophant that commanded respect because of whose pockets he collected his election campaign money from. He was no better than the president actually hell Lex wouldn't put it past the pair to be related a couple of generations back from the shared characteristic of lacking a spine to stand up to him when the genius wanted something.

Like this room, the one place in the entire hotel that would sustain damage that the senator had been asked to pay for including the deposit for damages. An innocuous enough request to just hire a room but Lex Luthor had ways of getting people to do things that seemed innocent but had ulterior motivations.

"Can you tell me why he is listed as working in thirty states, Lex?" Superman asked again with quiet strength.

"Were you trying to hide him?" Diana added making the foster father of Conner Luthor smile at her continued verbal napalm that kept destroying the order Superman was trying to create. It was not looking good for the pair. Wonder Woman was on a hair trigger and constantly going off and Superman was the one being riddled with the consequential lead that he couldn't deflect forever.

He was so glad the projector smokescreen was working on them. It was actually recording this entire meeting but the red light that usually told you when the device was active was removed. He couldn't wait to shove this on the six o'clock news if he had to smear the JLA.

"I merely conformed to his wishes to see the world, Wonder Woman," Lex said, "After his hospital stay and some time with his psychiatrist, a brilliant man named Doctor Thinner, to help him with his psychological issues, I alerted every single business in my significant Luthor Corp empire, made arrangements for my own personal secretary to keep an eye on him at all times and gave him an emergency phone with my number on it. He had all his accommodations paid for and we swapped e-mails whenever possible. What he doesn't know is that I also had his telephone tracked by a satellite twenty four seven and a clean-up crew whenever he had an accident."

"An accident?" Superman asked for clarification, staring at the Amazon to stand down. Lex was amused at the man of steel cracking the whip. There had been a long outstanding rumour the pair were dating. Was this behaviour from Wonder Woman a result of this? Had her little sister sharing a life together with the man of steel triggered this possible case of scorned wife syndrome?

Lex had to remind himself not to imagine things that might make him laugh and have the Amazon woman put him in traction for.

"With his powers I mean. It was mainly reflection damage from his heat vision going haywire that I believe is caused by his hormones." Lex smirked at that adding, "I trust you had the same issues when you were a teenager, Superman?"

"Yes, I had similar problems, Lex," Superman admitted reluctantly. Lex kept his smug arrogant smirk on but his lip did curl at this. He mentally added it to his search parameters on the program used to find his secret identity for any unusual fires that hadn't been explained. "That should have made you keep him close to you. His powers, especially the ones he inherited from me, are extremely dangerous untrained."

"I just wanted to give Conner what he wanted," Lex shrugged, "And the age conundrum in Congress allowed it. He already had incredible amounts of knowledge implanted during his time at Cadmus. He had no need for school if he did not want to go and if anyone asked or complained I could have arranged for him to get his high school diploma at any time."

"Did you ask him to not reveal himself to me or to the League?" Superman asked.

Oh, that was a diamond no if such a phrase could have existed, a _platinum bar_ of a question. Conner had wanted to travel alone and had no desire to be noticed by the JLA or Superman. The uncertainty of how the man of steel could have reacted amongst other teenaged fuelled 'who am I?' soul searching had triggered the wanted reaction from his ward without having to nudge him in that direction. If Doomsday hadn't turned up and turned Superman into a punching bag and destroyed the Justice League (a week on and they hadn't even been functioning at half of their usual strength), Conner would still be criss-crossing around America until he got bored and came home with no one the wiser to where he came from. The favour he had created to bind Conner to him via his sense of honour (why Cadmus would give a weapon such a thing was beyond him but it saved him having to teach Conner himself) was called in as nothing seemed to even make the beast take notice for more than three seconds.

"He asked me not to disclose his existence to you." He would buy Conner another steak dinner and a freaking sports car for the wounded stare Superman had as his composure slipped. Now was a perfect time to issue terms while the enemy was down. Wonder Woman had rendered herself a hostile party that if she tried to negotiate anything the senator and his lawyers would wrap them up so tight in red tape Conner would be dead of old age before it was all resolved. "But we have caught up long enough. Let's get to discussing how we are going to do this."

"Yes," Superman said distractedly, "We have written up an agreement that Wonder Woman has in her arms. Could you read it and tell me what you think of it?"

The angry woman handed him the document, a thick one that was the width of his thumb, and gave it a cursory glance. It smelt fresh, still warm as well and reading it gave it the impression that someone had done a good job. Still, for his plan to work, he had to keep Superman off guard and Wonder Woman enraged. So, like any smart non meta-human super genius, he put a corner of the yellow document to his cigar and set it on fire.

It was one hell of a statement to make. 'No thanks but your work is probably going to be pointless, so I did you a favour by burning it before my poor eyes had to read any of it'. Or what ran through Lex's mind then. It was a foolhardy move in any other circumstances as well. But he had set the scene. By riling one of them so much that she had already shown signs of considering violence to sate her aggravation and then almost literally adding some more fire to the discussion the former villain put the ball in his court.

Wonder Woman's lunge was read without any problem from the non-meta-human. He pushed back on his wheeled chair (the only one so to make anyone else have to push their chair into place ergo another albeit minor annoyance) away from her dangerous strength and pressed the ear piece three times to trigger the last piece of the puzzle.

As a delayed signal triggered the sonic implants in each of his lawyers and the senator (costing him 100k per person just so it was possible) located in their ear canals so they're retreat looked like a panicked escape from a mad woman. Wonder Woman was wrestled back into her seat by a less than pleased Superman, whom fell for his bait distracted from checking for high pitched noises by the angry Amazon he had to subdue. Then, moments later a rumble shook from below. A sonic boom that made every pane of glass in the conference room shake like an earthquake had gone on underneath them. Seconds later flying outside of the window was his son Conner, having seen the famous Amazon temper.

It was a dirty move, in fact it was particularly low even for him but using his son to garner a deal while the leaguers, his aunt and father no less appeared to be the aggressors. The panic room was soundproof leaving him isolated, pliable and already the Luthor man of the family had prepared his son to 'protect' him if the meeting became heated. By adding his mother to the mixture, it also doubled as a test to prove if his loyalty to him had been compromised.

His plan B was to jump out of the window and be caught by a Team Luthor operative. His ring contained a device that produced sonic waves high enough to shatter glass with ease. It had more risks involved including no less than his operative failing to catch him where the tycoon would have fallen to a horrible death, but thankfully his first choice had avoided that for him. Then, he would donate the recording being streamed to his news network would help him in a battle with the courts that would make the process longer but nonetheless he would win.

Lex Luthor would do anything to make his vision come true. He needed, no, wanted the path his son was choosing to follow to further his own dreams. No more did he need to resort to violence and destruction to scream out his message of defiance to a world obsessed and reliant on the man of steel. No irresponsible heroes that echoed their wishes without leading the way for the rest of humanity to follow. Conner Luthor would be different.

The next generation of superhuman would be a true hero.

His son, clad in another white solar suit that he had been wearing under some designer jeans and hand stitched shirt that Mercy had insisted he wear proudly displayed the famous shield of the Superman legacy. The shield had been his idea to add on the last second in the unlikely hope that Superman might see it as a sign that he had some control over the scenario Lex had carefully scripted. His additional mask, inspired by the Batman's sidekick Robin (1-3 it didn't matter) provided some extra glare for his boy to throw into the scenario that his machinations had created.

Now, it was the time to negotiate.

"Conner!" Lex shouted to his son whose super hearing picked it up with ease while wheeling his chair back into position. The added showing of his 'escape' was just again at the perfect moment just as Conner had arrived on the scene. "The window catch is coloured red and on the left up on the highest window."

Conner nodded and flew up with more grace than he had against Doomsday, now that he could take his time, pulled the catch they had installed this morning to open the highest window pane and fly in. He landed in the middle of the startled party and removed his face mask showing his concern for his foster father and confusion to the harried Wonder Woman with a face like thunder and Superman… Ah, Superman looked slightly betrayed? Or was he feeling guilt or perhaps rejection? Oh, it was times like these that Lex enjoyed second guessing the usually resolute Man of Steel.

"Hello, Lex," the teenager greeted with an obviously fake smile, looking at the fire intently then at Lex and finally at Superman where a deep frown replaced his poor attempt at being emotionless. He blinked though after some deep thinking; searching for the damage of the war that was supposed to be his cue to assume was going on from the communicator in his ear unlike the implant. The teenager added lamely buried under the heavy silence that came after his greeting, "Do you want me to put that out for you?" When nobody did anything else Lex looked on amused at Wonder Woman's scowl as a mere tilt of his bald head had his boy obeying the silent command to put out the fire by smothering it with his invulnerable skin. When the fire hazard was removed he asked with caution, "So who set the book on fire? This isn't ours," he concluded, scanning the surviving pages.

"It was their proposal," Lex stated, shrugging at his wary tone with a hint of concern or so he had identified. Emotions were complex bodies to understand. After all he rarely called the boy 'son' unless it was a special occasion so as to not to appear pushy and rationed it to turn it into a reward.

"And nothing that you haven't written or authorised is worth the paper it's written on," Conner said uncertainly quoting a catchphrase his foster father used often. It was why Luthor Corp owned its own legal department and of course it was the best in the world. "Is that why you upset my aunt by burning their agreement, Lex?"

"No," Lex said smugly, puffing away on a new cigar he had stashed away in his breast pocket, "That was us exchanging pleasantries before we began the negotiations, Conner."

His son gave him an analytical stare, discerning silently which made the elder Luthor immensely proud about the situation. He looked to Superman, whom was sitting silently copying his son, while Wonder Woman, still flushed, smiled weakly although she was still red and furious. Conner looked again to his father and nodded his head.

"Hello, Superman," his child greeted his other father after regaining his composure a little, "It is nice to see you again too, aunt."

"Hello, Conner," Superman and Wonder Woman both greeted. Lex read through the brief greeting with ease. They were both nervous and aware that Wonder Woman had been making a scene.

"They don't seem to be trying to hurt you, Lex," Conner said with concern. "I thought that you would only contact me…"

"Sit down, Conner," he interrupted abruptly, asking his final piece of emotional torment to stand by him. His human shield that prevented Wonder Woman from releasing her stoked up anger sat down. His anonymity had been spared and the teenager had gained it truly because Lex had already altered the records and used those nifty devices that were implanted in his lawyers, pet senators who were not trustworthy to wipe the memories of the senator and the committee plus anyone else who analysed the male child. Plus with some computer tampering to his existing file, (much easier to alter what already existed than it was to create) and labelling his place of birth as an orphanage the cover up was complete. Conner's stated childhood had been in a burnt down facility in Louisiana that had killed the entire population of the home and matron in charge plus the social worker who had been sleeping in a spare room that night in charge of his adoption to Lex Luthor. It left Conner home free and albeit reluctant to live his life again as a lie it did show the teenager was not above brain washing to get to the job done.

You just had to love that undeveloped sense of social values or scruples. All Lex had to do was provide a convincing argument and his son was all for it.

"Where is your mother?" Diana asked carefully, saying it at Lex in a manner you could argue had a double meaning like she was demanding to know if her ally's biggest enemy had just taken that moment to kidnap her sibling.

"I left her with Mercy to talk about things…" Conner added, "Me I think, actually," injecting some unexpected improvised dry humour that again Lex was very impressed by. The teenager had improved his social skills by leaps and bounds, but still lacked certain social qualities most if not all mundane human beings took for granted. It was a shame that nobody found it funny with such a tense atmosphere.

"She has been worried about you," Superman supplied.

"I know," Conner admitted guiltily, "Mum… Donna told me all about it with Mercy. I am sorry for upsetting everyone, but I saw that you finding out my benefactor was _Lex Luthor_ of all people had upset you all. I agreed with Lex that giving you time was the best way forward." Conner then stood up without warning as did moments later the man of steel approvingly. The doors opened and in stepped Mercy with Donna, even Lex couldn't lie about very attractive mother in casual jeans and blouse.

"_It must have been his super hearing,"_ Lex theorised thoughtfully. He examined his watch and Mercy Graves, the red headed assistant wearing her tailored grey suit with semi-circle shaped glasses was right on schedule for her big entrance.

"Is everything alright in here?" Donna asked worriedly, taking a chair next to her sister. Superman and Conner copied her as soon as she was settled.

"Everything is fine," Diana strained her words warningly so that it more or less sounded like a threat not to ask any more questions. Donna stopped looking at her sister after that, sufficiently cowed, a submissive trait Lex took proper note of. Anything to get one over on the mother to his son was important ammunition.

"Mr Luthor," his assistant greeted. Mercy marched up to her employer and sat down next to her employer's son. She must have read something was amiss with her stoic charge and reached for his hand. It was a very intimate gesture, one she used often right back at the very beginning as Conner brought out her motherly side all too easily. Shared looks conveyed their status to the other in a startling showing of familiarity.

"Now that we are all here, let me show you my proposal," Lex said, throwing a folder from his briefcase in the middle of the trio. Superman elected himself the first to read it taking it after a silent debate between him and Wonder Woman that did not include the actual mother which in itself was a very interesting observation. It was a smaller document than the one they wrote, filled with ideas and thoughts as well as contributions from his son. It was a masterstroke to include the teen of steel (Lex hoped that name never caught on) views on the final document. Neither of the three would be eager to reject this out of hand in fear of offending or scaring Conner off indefinitely. "Any questions Superman?"

"Can we confer and let everyone read this first?"

"Go right ahead," Lex said smugly, already prepared for the questions they would inevitably ask.

The three of them went into a huddle and began whispering mostly leaving Donna Troy on the side-lines. She showed her irritation at this but didn't comment on it or offer anything unless she was addressed directly by the two older heroes. Conner had his eyes closed the whole time, a quirk he hadn't gotten rid of entirely it appeared when the teenager was using his super hearing. Judging from his tenseness the teenager was not overtly upset by what was being spoken about.

"We have a few questions about this," the oldest Amazon stated.

"Ask away, Wonder Woman," Lex offered.

"I would like to hear from his own lips that Conner wants to stay under your guardianship until he is eighteen."

"I do want to stay with Lex," Conner said seriously, making his father inwardly shout out for joy, "He was the one that allowed me to live my life these past two years in the way I wanted to. He healed me when I was sick and Lex Luthor was the first person apart from Mercy who I could call family. I want to get to know you all more of course but until this is settled better I think it is better for us all if I remain where I am."

"That is good enough for me," Donna said, smiling at him for at that time he was being very shy. Lex enjoyed seeing the usually mild mannered teenager show some of his vulnerability in a less destructive manner than with his phobias.

"I would like to," the raven haired beauty Wonder Woman started to say but a thump on the table and the evil eye from her younger sister had the woman drop what she was going to say. In the room right then, Lex now understood he had one more ally than previously thought.

"I would like to address the paragraph on page four about visits to Themyscira," Donna carried on over Superman who had been trying to say something. She took a vindictive pleasure from talking over the two judging from how her eyes seemed to gleam and keeping them in line. Her wicked grin had his son return it uncertainly. "Am I right when I read this that these can be whenever he wishes? We do have different holidays and traditions that he might want to attend that could cut into his school week."

"I told him that if he wanted to explore his Amazonian heritage I would support him one hundred percent and I was given the impression Conner wanted to, isn't that right?"

"Yes, Lex," Conner agreed, "Ever since I found out my mother was an Amazon, Mercy helped me find a few books that my aunt had published about the modern culture of the island."

"He hasn't put them down since I bought them," Mercy teased, making the boy blush. Lex didn't comment on her lack of professionalism about her speaking out when not directly addressed. It had worked out in her favour as the volcano had begun to cool rapidly from the openly expressive Wonder Woman at her nephew's enthusiasm while the younger but wiser in some ways Troia also showed her approval.

"I have a question about the schools he could attend," Superman said, "Are you only considering private schools?"

By asking that question Lex added another search parameter to his search program to uncover Superman's secret identity. The man had been public schooled or that question wouldn't come from a private schooled child who wouldn't have even taken that into consideration.

"Only the best for Conner, as I see it," Lex answered, "He is a Luthor, after all. When I publicly introduce him to the world later today, he will have an image to live up to."

"Will it be alright if Themyscira helped with that?" Donna quickly continued and explained herself for her question when Lex raised an eyebrow at her unusual request. He would have thought they wouldn't care as long as someone was signing the cheque, "Not to say that you are unable, of course, but our pride as Amazons wouldn't let you pay for everything."

"It can be arranged, of course," Lex answered. There was no power lost there but merely shared. Let them think they had gained ground here. In the end he would be the big winner here. "We can arrange that at a later date."

"But what school is your preferred choice, Conner?" Superman asked. "Will it be Brentwood or the one in Metropolis?"

"I don't know right now," the white clad superhero to be confessed, "I still have a week to decide."

"Is there a reason why you insist that someone accompanies him to Themyscira every time he visits?" The oldest Amazon said this in her usual confrontational manner; by jabbing the part on the paper to him like Lex was just a four year old learning to read. She might have been trying to annoy him, but instead the man found it hilarious.

"It does say female watcher," Lex said plainly, "I thought that would be enough. But if you are asking why Conner needs someone with him at all I felt it was so he had someone to back his corner if any of you tried to press him into staying there full time."

"Are you insinuating…"

"No, I am telling you that not so long ago you were my enemy and now I are someone that you have to tolerate for the sake of your nephew," the businessman interrupted returning the same condescending manner she had been using on him, "I am going to remain part of your life regardless but I wouldn't put it past you to pressure him while nobody is around to fight his corner."

The Wonder Woman stood up abruptly but was swiftly returned to her chair by her sister and Superman almost in synch. She bit back her scowl from before with an uncomfortable Conner halfway from standing and sitting.

"As long as it is only a woman with no special abilities then I cannot see any problems from our mother, the queen."

Lex Luthor wondered if they had spoken to the queen in length about this. He had been tracking those two and the airspace around the island with no sign of any traffic especially from the invisible plane Wonder Woman used to get around.

"I would only allow Mercy to go with him anyway. Is it alright, Mercy?"

The woman stood up from her chair. "Yes, of course, Mr Luthor," she stated before sitting down again.

"Is there anything else?" Lex asked curiously, "Anything you want to add to the document before we write up the final draft here and we can send a copy to you to sign?"

"Yes," Superman said, standing up and walking closer to Lex. The unexpected action had Lex reaching for his sonic ring until he stopped just a foot apart from the bewildered Conner comically stiffening up at the proximity. "We have a proposal for you, Conner. The Justice League has just created a group filled with our protégés and other young heroes named the Young Justice. And we were wondering, since its every weekend, if you wanted to take part in it? My cousin, Supergirl, is part of the teaching staff for it."

"And me as well," Donna piped in, "I also volunteered, as did Nightwing, amongst others. It covers all heroes until the age of eighteen, where we then decide if they can become full members of the League."

Lex, for the first time today, had to improvise. This offer hadn't been scripted or anticipated; the development hadn't even reached his ears yet. So they had created a group for the newbie heroes? It appeared on the surface to be something to ease the transition from latching off their mentors to operating independently gradually. It sounded like an excellent idea in principle for Conner to attend. He would benefit from close relations to other heroes if not the ideal conclusion to the group that would offer him membership in the league. That would be something that would gradually be discouraged, but learning teamwork and getting the benefits of such outside of the other training Lex had planned and commissioned was something he couldn't deny would help.

But Lex Luthor was not a genius for nothing. He knew how to use this to his advantage. He was the guardian and the bald man was perfectly aware of what strings to pull to avoid the problem of his Kryptonian defecting to his biological father and the inviting offer of a 'real' family. It was time to nip this in the bud.

Conner had been quiet through this speech. He had shown more of that overwhelmed teenager that he had been trying to hide all this time. They were offering acceptance, chances to interact more with his family and even meet new ones. Conner was also going to be offered people of his own age that on some way he could relate to.

"Well, Conner, do you want to?" he asked kindly, slapping another titbit of a surprise to set up the pins for the strike he was using, "You did already ask me to help train you to become a hero. Here is your chance to work with other teenagers with the same goals in life."

"I do want to join them, Lex," Conner said confidently, "I want to make up for what I did to the Lunar Watchtower and prove that I can do better than I did against Doomsday."

That little bit of dialogue was both welcomed and hated by Conner's foster father. It lowered Superman's guard just that bit more with the understanding he offered that had the Amazons following suit while at the same time Lex had watched the footage from that battle. Conner had fought well against something that destroyed the Justice League and beaten up Superman, but according to his psychiatrist, he was only hung up on that because of how he had reacted when the teenager had awoken on the base and proceeded to wreck it.

He decided to lecture him later, no matter how he had wished to congratulate his son for pulling off something Lex Luthor had failed at. Now, it was time to see if Superman would take the bait.

"Then I have no problem with him joining the League if he wants."

"I want to Lex." Everyone in the room including Mercy all showed their happiness at the conclusion. Wonder Woman and Troia appeared to be ecstatic about him becoming a hero and his assistant even broke her composure again by hugging his son with pride.

"Then we will add it to the amended agreement on the provision that you allow Conner to decide if he reveals his true identity to his fellow members."

"Only Wonder Girl knows his identity that would have to work with him, but she is trustworthy," Superman assured the visibly relieved Conner Luthor while underneath frowning at the league and their poor information control. Hadn't they heard anything about secrecy when secrets had to be kept? "We suppressed all knowledge of his identity, except among the senior Leaguers who are, by oath, compelled to say nothing either."

"But I want something to be added before I allow my permission."

Superman stared at him hard with a gaze that would melt Lex faster than his heat vision could do. Lex stood his ground and the Man of Steel relented, offering him the floor.

"What do you want?"

Lex said this miraculously without showing his pleasure in demanding this from Superman. He had no desire to antagonise the Amazons either but they could be killed far easier than the man of tomorrow. Aim a nuke and bam they were no longer a problem to contemplate. One Kryptonian had a question mark hanging over him if it was possible for him to survive a nuclear blast.

"If he chooses a mentor, as I believe I understand is your way of choosing members for this team, I do not want you Superman to take the job." When Superman froze and then began to show instinctual anger that had the equally invulnerable Conner backing away he added, "Unless you are prepared to tell him your secret identity. I do not care," Lex started, lying through his teeth about the next part of his speech and powering through initial protests from all parties, "What your name is Superman, but as Wonder Woman and Donna Troy are prepared to tell Conner everything about them, so I expect you to do the same. I will not have you even unintentionally stringing Conner along. Until you do, I must have your word that you will choose another to become his mentor. My preference is Powergirl."

Seen once upon a time to be alienated from Supergirl and Superman plus her surly personality made her perfect to be his son's mentor. She was also just as powerful and less influenced by the agenda Superman worked with. Lex concluded that the woman, an adult compared to Supergirl would also serve better in guiding his son through the strange world that she too had been thrown into and could relate better too the boy that had only been on earth for two years but was nearing adulthood.

"Is that something you will insist on?" Superman asked with a harsh edge. Conner was back to pretending to be neutral and Mercy was back on hand holding duty.

"Yes, I must, Superman. His mother, his aunt and their people won't be hiding anything. You cannot either. You either agree or move aside for someone else."

"Powergirl will take some convincing, but yes, you have a deal, Lex," Superman curtly stated, walking back to his chair with heavy steps almost marching the unconditional victory his arch-rival had just achieved.

"If there is no business…" Lex left it hanging and treated himself to a satisfied smirk at the conclusion to the proceedings. "Any smaller details will be done between the lawyers. Now Superman, Wonder Woman and Miss Troy, Conner, Mercy and I are just about to have lunch ordered in with the time we have left. Will you care to join us?"

It was another little test to see if they're patience had been exceeded or not. He had one more stack of papers that he had left in a secret compartment of his suitcase hidden under a sheet of lead that had made it rather heavy to carry.

"We don't have any pressing business, so sure why not?" Superman said cheerfully, a man that could bounce back fairly swiftly from anything negative. Lex could bet that he was already making plans or hopefully agonising over having to figure out whether to expose his secret identity that his nemesis had been wanting since the day they had first met. Either way, he seemed prepared or distracted enough to take one more question.

"I never turn down a free meal," Donna said light heartedly. She was a non-threat so her mood didn't matter. Her sister on the other hand was the one with the cooling but still present anger that had served him so well earlier. He weighed his options, remembering Donna Troy and Superman's handling then deciding to jump the tightrope.

"Well then I will have Mr Aldrin, my security chief find someone to bring up some menus my treat." That was another white lie. Everything in this room came included with the senator's deposit. But seeing Conner look so pleased everyone was getting along almost made him want to back down from his course of action but would he ever get the moment like this again?

"Mr Aldrin," Lex asked into his earpiece, "Please if you would get us a waiter to bring up some menus."

"_Yes Mr Luthor."_

"Now that is sorted I would like to bring up something important that wasn't relevant to our discussions today." Lex placed his thumb print onto the scanner that was hidden and with a blue laser it was verified and the secret compartment popped open. He took out the stack of papers and handed it to the man of steel.

"What is this?" Superman queried, "Satellite schematics?"

"Yes they are the same ones as the satellite you destroyed during the battle with Doomsday. I was planning to contact the League directly about this, but since you are here can you tell me when you plan to pay for the damages to it?"

The priceless gaping mouth like a goldfish look on Superman's face as he stared at the bill for the experimental surveillance and counter intelligence satellite would be one Lex would treasure until the day he died.

XreviewX

A/N There you go guys. Lex Luthor gets his victory and still manages even when he is now a good guy to be an utter bastard! That's former evil geniuses for you I guess ^^ See you next time and don't forget to review. Any is regarded with sincere thanks. Thanks again for _hockeygoalie1992_ for the beta work!


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